The Chicago Bulls' Best Defender Barely Receives Game Minutes

Bulls broadcast analyst Stacey King himself made a case for putting consistency into Buzelis' game minutes in a Friday re-post on X, related to an original X post by the account Stat Defender citing Buzelis as the number one ranked NBA player in terms of defensive two-point field goal percentage.

Bulls On Tap researched Stat Defender's original X post for data source validity. According to NBA.com, the Bulls forward is the number one ranked NBA player in terms of two-point defensive field goal percentage, at 42.9%, among players with at least 150 defensive field goal attempts as of Friday, Jan. 24, 2025.

The Bigger Picture About the 2024-25 Bulls Defense and Buzelis

Stat Defender's statistical observation on Buzelis is a good data point that leads to a bigger context for understanding the 2024-25 Chicago Bulls defense when the same data set  used by Stat Defender is analyzed with additional category filters, such as shot distance and three-point shots. Simply put, Matas Buzelis is the 2024-25 Chicago Bulls' best defender.

Why Buzelis?

Matas Buzelis is a top-10 NBA defender in terms of defensive field goal percentage on shot attempts from less than six feet away and less than 10 feet away from the basket while also delivering serviceable three-point defense (in terms of defensive field goal percentage), statistically comparable to bigs such as Giannis Antetokounmpo, Al Horford, and Jarret Allen.

Matas Buzelis' Defensive Field Goal Percentage Profile through 45 2024-25 NBA Regular Season Bulls Games (source: NBA.com):

• 48.7% defensive field goal percentage - less than six feet shot distance - ranked sixth in the NBA among players with a minimum of 100 field goal attempts 
• 46.4% defensive field goal percentage - less than ten feet shot distance - ranked seventh in the NBA among players with a minimum of 100 field goal attempts
• 37.1% defensive field goal percentage - three-point distance
• 2024-25 Comp: Giannis Antetokounmpo - 37.2% defensive field goal percentage - three-point distance
• 2024-25 Comp: Al Horford - 37.3% defensive field goal percentage - three-point distance
• 2024-25 Comp: Jarrett Allen - 37.4% defensive field goal percentage - three-point distance

Buzelis, in his rookie NBA, has consistently displayed defensive versatility and confidence in the amount of space he can reliably defend.

Contrast Buzelis' defensive field goal percentages with that of teammates Patrick Williams, Zach LaVine, Josh Giddey, Jalen Smith, Ayo Dosunmu, and Coby White, who are among the bottom-ranked NBA players in defensive field goal percentages  less than six feet and less than ten feet away from the rim.  To Josh Giddey's credit, he is surprisingly a top-20 player in terms of three-point defensive field goal percentage and still a defensive liability inside the arc.

Matas Buzelis needs to play more game minutes to complement his defensively limited teammates as a help-defender or someone who can pick up a switch without becoming cross-matched.

As a final noteworthy statistic, in the Bulls' top 10 lineups in terms of minutes played in their first 45 games of the 2024-25 NBA regular season, only two lineups contain Buzelis however, those two lineups also rank in the top three of Bulls lineups in terms of plus-minus:

• Z. LaVine - L. Ball - J. Smith - J. Giddey - M. Buzelis: 7.7 game minutes played (+7.0)
• L. Ball - C. White - J. Smith - J. Giddey - M. Buzelis: 7.4 game minutes played (+14.0)

Your Move Arturas Karnisovas

Before the start of the 2024-25 Chicago Bulls season, Arturas Karnisovas laid bare a simple vision for the Bulls, which implicitly de-prioritized player development.  45 games in the Bulls are underachieving in the wins department, and their 2024 lottery selection is making the most of his limited game minutes.

Perhaps it is time for Karnisovas to finally prioritize defense as his team's identity and path to wins since the run-and-shoot threes philosophy largely looks like a failed idea. Bulls Nation is making its voice loud and clear, just like Matas Buzelis' stats are speaking clearly to the world.  

Give Matas Buzelis more minutes!