Prospect Complexity: Matas Buzelis

PROFILE:

Matas Buzelis is a complex scoring wing, whose scope ranges far beyond the quotidian 3&D prospect. He’s a tall, slim-framed wing who favors ball-manipulation over brute athleticism to create plays on both ends of the floor.  At 6’10, 209-lbs, the scoring concepts Buzelis has developed throughout the season has been impressive, utilizing handle and pace to exploit cracks in defenses. But while the ball-handling is attractive, athletically, it’s uncertain how Buzelis fares at the NBA level.

Respective to his playstyle — an off-the-dribble, downhill, interior creator; managing physicality and self-organization is imperative. His high center of gravity, sluggish burst, and unconvincing upper body strength, make achieving those objectives on a consistent basis impracticable.

Buzelis, to his benefit, has the creativity and ingenuity to implement pace and handle in live-dribble conditions to generate an edge, whereas the vast majority of tall wings do not.

Buzelis’ greatest advantage at the moment is his live processing. His proprioception, cognitive agility, offensively, are much further along than counterparts his size. This has earned him more reps as a secondary, sometimes primary initiator on offense.

Quad strength has been an underrated asset of Buzelis’. He’s an underrated dunker in general, making a few posters this season. His ability to generate leg power both off-the-dribble and off-standstill has been awesome to see. He’s comfortable utilizing both one-legged, two-legged takeoffs, which speaks to his adaptability and rhythmicity on the fly. He struggles generating lift against contact, suggesting weaker calf/hamstring muscles. This would also correlate with his negligible burst and footspeed. 

Where Buzelis is uncomfortable taking on contact, he is however, comfortable initiating it. With an emphasis on pace as a ball-handler, Buzelis is constantly surrounded by bodies. He loves using shoulder bumps and arm bars at the midrange to create extra space for pull-ups. He’s not afraid of post-ups either, using his 6’10 body against smaller defenders to execute simple mismatches.

His upper body strength is typical for 19 year-old prospects, particularly tall, thin wings. With NBA training, Buzelis will become stronger, organically. His body is far from full development.

Physical agility is the larger pitfall for Buzelis. Ineffectual reactive strength, foot speed, limited flexibility, weak core, inadequate strength. It isn’t sustainable for a starting NBA wing, even G League wing; Hence his deep shooting inefficiencies and defensive inconsistencies. Strength as previously mentioned, is easily scalable. But it’s difficult to project a player who lacks any semblance of burst to finally develop it in the NBA. Buzelis more than likely will always have to work around that in an effort to create advantages.

OFFENSE:

Through 32 games in the G League, Buzelis is averaging 12.6/6.5/1.9 on 51.6% TS. Alongside Ron Holland, a fellow 2024 draft prospect and projected top-10 pick, Buzelis’ played majority off-ball, exhibiting that of a 3&D. When Holland incurred a season-ending injury, Buzelis increased his on-ball reps, playing that of a shot-creating wing. Post-ups, PnR, isolations, Buzelis was afforded more on-ball usage.

Buzelis has struggled a lot this season with his perimeter shooting. At Sunrise Christian Academy, Buzelis was shooting 43.1% 3pt on over 100 attempts. It’s surprising to now see those 3pt shooting splits dip all the way below 30%, at a dismal 26.3% 3pt on over 110 attempts. Contested or uncontested, three-pointers from an NBA range are not falling for Buzelis. His shot diet consists primarily of C&S (86.8% of his attempts to be exact), so poor shot quality isn’t the cause of the major shooting slump. His shot form likely needs adjustment, specifically in his energy transfer from countermovement to jump. Lacks power, which affects his shooting touch.

Buzelis can shoot however. He’s shooting very well (47.2% fg), on off-the-dribble middies. These are analytically considered the worst shot in basketball, and Buzelis is draining them with great success. Contested, smothered, stepbacks, Buzelis is doing it all from a creation and efficiency standpoint. The disparity between mid-range and 3pt production suggests a technical error in his energy transfer from deep. The good news is this can be adjusted with a quality NBA shooting coach. Countless examples of players who lost their touch and regained it under the appropriate coaching.

Buzelis as a ball=handler is intriguing to watch, but there’s still a ways to go in his execution. Despite positive initial processing, Buzelis has been a fairly bad scorer on-ball. In the PnR, Buzelis is comfortable attacking with, or rejecting the screen, can dribble penetrate with his left or right hand, and has been very patient in getting to his spots. But he’s only shooting 0.556 PPP, 34.5% fg, in the PnR. He’s had a very tough time finishing through contact, whether it’s floaters or layups. He doesn’t take any threes coming out the PnR. This simply goes back to lackluster physical agility. 

Yet, the live-dribble creation gives hope he’ll bring it all together. Utilizes an array of dribble moves, from the hang dribble, hostage dribble, drag hesi, tween hesi, crossovers, full spins, the euro-step, Buzelis has an impressive bag. He’s creative, and willing to experiment in the moment to create scoring windows.

He has the aptitude to be a shot-creating wing, but it’s proven too difficult for him at the moment. His body doesn’t hold up with grown, professional athletes. His playstyle of pace has its advantages, but at the cost of marginal spacing. Meaning he’s always surrounded by defenders, forcing the issue of physical conditioning and overall shotmaking.

At the rim, Buzelis has been very inconsistent, alarming for a player of his size. Overall, he’s shooting 57.2% fg at the rim, but 47.6% on layups. This is a similar issue to another thin-framed shot-creating prospect in a previous class, Brandon Miller. Both struggled finishing at the rim on drives, either stemming from an absence of ball control when off-balance, poor verticality through contact (causes troublesome scoring windows), or inconsistent touch, specifically with the off-hand. Buzelis is experiencing all three. The first two are a matter of strength, while the third deals with hand/forearm dexterity. 

The same issues he’s faced in the PnR, he suffers in isolation. His athletic deficiencies, burst for example, becomes amplified, as he’s now without screens to get a beat on his defender. Not to mention, with minimal spacing, he’s shooting tough, contested jumpers. Rarely does he shoot iso threes. On-ball scoring hasn’t come easy for Buzelis.

Surprisingly, Buzelis has quite a bit of success from the post, shooting an efficient, 51.7% fg. Out the low post, Buzelis has done a great job targeting size mismatches, getting physical, and scoring in the paint. If he can’t generate the paint touch, he’s been more than comfortable deferring to post spin fades for a bucket. He’s also experimented a bit attacking face-up, taking advantage of his height for quick pull-up middies.

As a wing, Buzelis’ production off-ball as a play-finisher is as, if not more important than his capability as a shot-creator. More than likely, Buzelis will spend his first couple of seasons in the NBA as a play-finisher, rather than a primary//secondary ball-handler.

As an off-ball wing, Buzelis’ 3pt shooting woes continue, shooting a mere 29.3% on C&S. C&S are the bulk of Buzelis 3pt volume, so it’s disheartening to see the dropoff in efficiency from his senior year to now, with the G League. Buzelis becoming a 40% 3pt shooter in the NBA as he once was with Sunrise Christian seems very unlikely, but 29.3% 3pt also seems like a drastic overcorrection. His 3pt shooting should stabilize around league average with time. Tall wings have historically struggled shooting from NBA range in their teenage years, eventually finding their rhythm from their 3rd season on.

Aside from his perimeter shooting, Buzelis has been effective on the interior, attacking downhill off-the-catch. The extra momentum gained from stampeding the catch allows Buzelis shift focus to his finishing, rather than space-creation. His 2pt efficiency is night and day between his on-ball reps and off-ball. He’s shooting 50% fg on spot-up twos, 79.4% 2pt on cuts, and 58.9% 2pt in transition.

In general his scoring looks much smoother off-ball, relieved of the burden of shot creation as a 6’10 wing. The handle, pace, ball-manipulation, all look further polished off-ball. He’s been much better suited as an interior play-finisher rather than a 3-level ball-handling wing.

All in all, NBA teams should bank on Buzelis’ rarities: Functional, creative, intuitive, handle at 6’10 with midrange and perimeter shooting upside. His scalability offers a safety net_, as there’s a role for him no matter how the on-ball usage pans out.

On top of the scoring potential, Buzelis has real connective passing capabilities, amplified by his proficient live-dribble processing. Finds cutters and open shooters with ease. Especially in transition. Playmaking isn’t advanced, but connector skills respective to his position are incredibly valuable.

DEFENSE:

Buzelis has an interesting defensive profile. Where he lacks physically and athletically, his cognitive and technical agility makes up for it in a few important areas. As is, Buzelis physically can’t handle aggressive, strong, initiated contact, post-ups for example, leaving him a liability on matchups against bigger power forwards. He has no issue however, initiating contact. Buzelis in fact has found great success playing physically against drives to spur ball-pressure, taking ball-handlers out of rhythm. If he can initiate the contact, Buzelis becomes quite the impactful defender.

Athletically, Buzelis intrigues with subtle verticality and lateral mobility. His athletic feats aren’t imposing, but they’re sufficient to the extent of effectively defending other wings. He lacks the explosiveness and twitch to defend smaller guards, especially out on the perimeter. Speed also becomes an issue as well, which is only amplified by his lackluster recovery defense. Buzelis defends at his best against straight line drives, in which he leverages his body and unilateral mobility to cut off and deter lanes. Against craftier, shiftier ball-handlers, Buzelis really struggles tracking, staying in front. Doesn’t have the hip mobility to easily flip his hips at moment’s notice. Buzelis has moments where he’ll make a full outside spin to change the direction he’s shading, instead of simply flipping his hips. It’s only happened a few times, but it demonstrates where he’s at currently as far as hip mobility/flexibility.

His defensive weaknesses compound in the PnR. He’s has done a pretty poor job navigating screens. He much prefers to switch onto the screener, shying away from fighting/navigating over top of the screen to stay on the ball-handler. His effort against screens comes across as lackluster for how often he dies on the screen, and how infrequently Buzelis looks to recover once beaten. If the screener is ghosting, slipping, tagging, Buzelis is fine. Having to fight through a traditional pick is where Buzelis completely falls apart. On top of poor technique, Buzelis doesn’t effectively communicate with the screen defender (his teammate) when/if he’s switching, and his timing on switches often leaves one of the two offensive players in the two-man action open. 

There isn’t significant evidence suggesting Buzelis could become a switch defender in the league. Doesn’t have the length (wingspan) or athleticism, and his current reps leave much to be desired. He’s made a far greater impact as an interior defender, weakside rim protector. He’s a wing that teams would like to keep off-ball, away from screens. 

Off-ball, Buzelis has clear positive upside. Averaging 1.8 blocks per game, Buzelis has shown incredible agility contesting shots, both at the rim and against jumpers. He’s an incredibly active low-man, always looking for opportunities to make plays weakside. 

Because of his lack of wingspan, precision is fundamental in generating blocks and steals on a consistent basis. He doesn’t have the physiological margins Wemby, Claxton, or Holmgren have to be late on rotations or contests. It’s critical he executes the right way, at the right time. And he generally does. His spatial awareness, feel for rhythm, and anticipation, all merge together to make this possible. 

On the other hand, Buzelis can be a heavy ball-watcher, surrendering backdoor and curl cuts. Buzelis’ recovery defense is fairly weak, as he tends to give up on plays after he’s been beat. Seemingly stems from a lack of confidence in his athletic range. Doesn’t bother making the effort as he knows more than likely he’s not quick nor explosive enough to recover the lost ground in time.

VERDICT:

A clear top 10 prospect, Buzelis’ skillset makes for star potential. His ability to find ways to score in spite of athletic and physical deficiencies is unique and appealing. While his defense has much room for improvement, the defensive playmaking provides hope in a better future. An incredibly compelling prospect for teams looking for upside players with size and offensive versatility.