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A seemingly quiet offseason suddenly got a whole lot louder.
After yesterday’s news of Caleb Wilson making the NBA Summer League First Team and Derrick Rose landing the Ultimate Edition cover of NBA 2K27, there’s still a whole lot more Bulls news to get through.
Most of it comes from Matas Buzelis, who joined former Chicago Bulls guard Lonzo Ball’s podcast. The rest comes from around the league.
Let’s talk Bulls basketball.
・Yesterday, the Ball in the Family Podcast with Lonzo & Gelo Ball dropped its 35-minute episode featuring Chicago Bulls forward Matas Buzelis. Lonzo and Matas were teammates during Matas’ rookie season in Chicago, so they already had a relationship and plenty to talk about heading into the episode.
・I’m working on an article for tomorrow that dives into Matas talking in detail about his offseason plans, what he’s focusing on, and who he hopes to work out with, so stay tuned for that. But there were also a ton of other things discussed on this podcast that are definitely worth talking about.
・Not to be someone who dwells on the past, but one of the first things they discussed was Billy Donovan and his film sessions. We already had a pretty good idea of this between the stats, what we saw on the court, and what Ayo Dosunmu said after getting traded to the Minnesota Timberwolves last season: Billy wasn’t exactly a fan of the mid-range shot.
・On the pod, Lonzo explained how that specifically applied to Matas.
“Matas got game bro, but like, when I was over there, he was on a leash unfortunately,” said Lonzo. “Matas is a high pick. Matas is supposed to be here and lead the future of this team. Bro shoots a step-back, easy middy, right, that he can probably make eight out of ten times. He happens to miss it… Billy stops the film and goes in. ‘Take that sh t, and throw it in the garbage.'”*
・Matas did defend former Bulls coach Billy, but it was pretty clear that, as good of a coach as he is, player development wasn’t exactly his specialty. It was more about fitting players into his system than building a system around his best players’ strengths.
・Now, that’s not to say a mid-range-heavy offense is a good thing in today’s NBA. It isn’t. But completely shutting down something Matas was already comfortable with right out of the gate does seem a little crazy.
・The other fun tidbit from the podcast was that NBA big man Jonas Valančiūnas is actually Matas Buzelis’ uncle. I know there were rumors of the Bulls signing him in free agency before he ultimately decided to join Žalgiris Kaunas in the EuroLeague instead.
・Finally, toward the end of the podcast, they talked about one of the darkest moments of Matas’ young career: his underwhelming performance in the 2025 NBA Slam Dunk Contest.
・According to Matas, the biggest reason he missed those dunks, even after preparing much better ones beforehand, was Mac McClung and those blue basketballs. Let him explain.
“The night before… the AT&T guys walk up to me and they were like, ‘Yo, you pick up the blue ball and you dunk with it, you get 10 grand every time you do it.'”
・But the ball just didn’t feel right.
“Nah, I’m changing the ball. F *k that, that sht not bouncing… I’m walking off, and Mac McClung is going next. He pull out a Kia and sht… I’m like, I’m picking that blue ball up every time.”*
・Matas confirmed he still got paid and admitted he knew it’d be harder to win anyway because Mac gets a lot more time to prepare his dunks than the NBA players do. But hey, if you’re going to lose, you might as well walk away with a paycheck.
・In other NBA news, Bulls’ 2015 first-round pick Bobby Portis recently revealed who he thinks is the NBA GOAT. Now a member of the Miami Heat after being included in the Giannis Antetokounmpo trade, Bobby picked LeBron James.
“NBA GOAT? LeBron James,” said Bobby Portis. “I’m a LeBron fan… We could argue all day.”
・This is definitely part of Miami’s very subtle attempt to convince LeBron James to join the Heat. We also saw the Heat accidentally schedule a YouTube Live for LeBron’s “announcement,” which was premature. The LeBron James sweepstakes may be quiet right now, but they’re still as dramatic as ever.
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