Matas Buzelis hasn’t crossed the tough love finish line.
The Bulls rookie played well on the six-game road trip, and even starred in a Hollywood production with a career-high 31-point performance against the Lakers in La-La Land last Saturday, but getting off the Billy Donovan leash and having free rein to work through mistakes and inexperience?
Not yet, kid, evident by the fact that he didn’t even sniff the floor in the fourth quarter a game later in Denver.
And here’s the thing about Buzelis: He continues to praise his coach for the way he’s being developed this season, insisting he fully understands that his minutes have to be earned.
Not that Donovan needs the approval of a 20-year-old, but it hasn’t gone unappreciated.
“We’ve had a lot of conversations, and I think one of the things he really wants is he wants to be pushed,” Donovan said of Buzelis. “He wants to be challenged. I love that as a coach. I think he wants the truth and handles the truth. A lot of times guys say they want the truth, and they don’t like the truth sometimes, but he handles it really, really well, and I think that’s what he wants.
“It’s my responsibility, our staff’s responsibility, and even the guys on the team to hold him to a standard, to pull stuff out of him. Because 82 games as a young player, you’re not going to have it every single night, but you got to be able to find ways to ramp yourself up, and I appreciate his words. I love working with him and I think he’s a great kid.”
One that’s showing promise as well.
Buzelis didn’t just have flashes on the road trip, he offered up some consistency. Sure, there were still matchups that exploited his weaknesses and some blown defensive coverages, but they’re becoming fewer and fewer.
The 11th overall pick averaged 13 points and a block per game, as well as shooting 49.2% from the field and 40.6% from three-point range on the trip. His rebounding wasn’t great – only 3.2 per game – but Donovan talked to him about staying aggressive on the boards several times, so it was addressed.
That’s why Donovan likes his makeup. Issues are addressed and understood quickly by Buzelis.
“He wants to be good, he wants direction, he wants clarity, and there’s just certain things he’s going to just have to go through that he can’t be prepared for, and he’ll be better for it,” Donovan said. “The one thing I really admire and respect about him is I really believe he views adversity and mistakes as the only path forward to growth. I think a lot of times there’s certain players that can look at the adversity and the mistakes and they can’t view it that way. They view it as a personal indictment on themselves.
“One of the things with young players is do you have the ability to separate what you do in between the lines and who you are as a person? He’s able to do that. I think he’s very comfortable as a person and he wants to be a really, really good player, and there’s things he’s going to need help with.”
That’s where his teammates come in.
Buzelis asks questions and takes criticism the right way. That’s why the veterans have no issue letting him know right from wrong and do so in the heat of the moment without him shrinking because of it.
“He’s come a long way,” veteran center Nikola Vucevic added. “One great thing about him is he’s willing to take on criticism, he accepts it, and he moves on. He doesn’t pout, get mad, he accepts it and takes on the challenges. It’s a great character to have.”