Matas Buzelis dunk highlights left an impression at Summer League

raw but active, that's good enough for now

Summer League analysis is mostly useless. But while good play can be pretty easily dismissed, absence of bad play is notable. Like when Dalen Terry looked terrible in these glorified exhibitions last summer, it was certainly a red flag which remained through his sophomore season. The Bulls seemingly felt perception was more important than reality in this case as they didn’t even have Terry on this year’s Summer League team though he just turned 22 and has limited NBA minutes.

So it’s good news that Matas Buzelis, at 19 years old, did not look ‘bad’. And he was at least an extremely active participant.

Across 5 games, at nearly 30 minutes per game, Buzelis had a usage rate of 29%. He was second in the entire league in Field Goal Attempts and 11th in Free Throws attempted.

The efficiency was not there. Even grading on a curve given the competition, this was expected from the draft scouting. While at 5.6 3PA/game, Buzelis only hit 21.4% of his shots from distance and 74% at the line. He ultimately wound up with a dismal True Shooting percentage of 43.2%.

But observers all commended Buzelis’s aggression. Will Gottlieb was there in Vegas for Chuggo and noted specifically “his driving game seems like his bread and butter” and “There aren’t many players his size that can get the ball up the floor and create their own shot the way he has flashed so far”, yet “It’s clear he needs to add strength to be able to get the ball all the way to the rim.”

Similarly, on defense Buzelis was at least active, with 2.0 blocks and 2.0 steals per game. Anecdotally drawing a couple charges. He didn’t measure to be a good defensive player but if he puts in the effort to be passable that would be a great benchmark to achieve in a rookie season.

Of course, I’m far from convinced when it comes to the Bulls player development organization. We can always assume given this franchise that no matter how much they say the words, the actual environment will lags behind most of the league. They finally hired a shooting coach last year and it appears to have helped with some players. The strength and conditioning seems to mostly produce broken feet. Billy Donovan (the second, not the Summer League coach) doesn’t really put young players in the rotation, and the front office is not really indicating they are going full teardown, but hopefully that lack of stated direction is just externally.

But do you want to know the terrifying truth? or do you want to see some slam dunks?!?

Other notable players in Bulls Summer League were Julian Phillips (didn’t shoot well but at least looks recovered from his season-ending foot injury), Adama Sanogo (kind of is what he is) who occupies one of the three two-way slots, and new two-way signing DJ Steward (house in the area, had 37 points in one SL game). I think my lack of enthusiasm for these prospects is that the Bulls themselves don’t seem to put much effort in the fringe end of the regular roster or their two-way roster spots.