Billy Donovan gets brutally honest on Matas Buzelis' decreased playing time
Yesterday at 10:45 PM
When the Chicago Bulls drafted Matas Buzelis ahead of the 2024-25 season, a lot of people thought that the young star could be a sneaky pick for Rookie of the Year. Now, we are almost into February, and we haven’t seen Buzelis blossom into the player that people were expecting. It’s obviously still incredibly early in his career, but it’s been an underwhelming rookie season.
So far this season, Matas Buzelis is averaging 4.9 points per game in just under 13 minutes per game. Bulls fans have been wondering why he isn’t getting more playing time, and head coach Billy Donovan addressed the situation on Saturday. Donovan referenced their recent game against the Golden State Warriors and how Buzelis was instantly targeted when he came into the game.
“I basically told him coming off the floor — ‘They are going directly at you. You’re gonna have to make a stance here, yeah?’ think that’s a great growth thing. Instead of saying, ‘Hey, Matas, don’t worry about it, just keep playing man, keep doing it.’ Those are things there that a lot of people may not see as being valuable, but they’re incredibly valuable because it creates clarity for him about what he knows he needs to do,” Donovan said, according to a post from Julia Poe. “And he and I spoke about it today, you know? And he felt that he’s got to be a player. We can’t take a young player and say, ‘Okay, we’re just going to try to hide him on these different players so he doesn’t have to be exposed to that.’ And he had every opportunity to be in those situations.”
Billy Donovan wants to put Matas Buzelis in those kinds of situations, and he believes that they will eventually ready him for a bigger role.
“Those situations are good for him,” Donovan continued. “But he’s got to understand too — listen, that’s got to stop. So I put him right back in the second half (against Golden State) and gave him another shot again. But that’s what it’s going to be like for him a little bit, you know? And I’ve said this before, I just am not a believer, l’ve never seen it happen. Because I think what happens is sometimes you just teach a player — by just giving them a bunch of minutes with no responsibility — what they should do and how to impact losing. He needs to be and we want him to be a winning player.”
Matas Buzelis has had a quiet rookie season, but Donovan hasn’t lost any confidence in his lottery pick despite his lack of playing time. Donovan wants to make sure that he does everything right as he gets Buzelis ready to be a key player for the Bulls.
The post Billy Donovan gets brutally honest on Matas Buzelis’ decreased playing time appeared first on ClutchPoints.
