Matas Buzelis knew Rookie of the Year honors were out of reach by the end of the regular season.
All-Rookie Team, however? The Bulls rook wasn’t shy about putting an individual achievement in the trophy case.
“Any type of award in the NBA, I’d like,” Buzelis said very matter-of-factly last month. “Yeah, I think I belong on that All-Rookie team, for sure. It would be an honor to grab something like that.”
Honor grabbed.
The league announced on Tuesday the first and second All-Rookie teams, and while Buzelis played like a first teamer after the All-Star Break, he’d have to settle for Second Team, joining Miami’s Kel’el Ware, New Orleans’ Yves Missi, Portland’s Donovan Clingan and Washington’s Bub Carrington.
Rookie of the Year Stephon Castle was the only unanimous First Team selection, joining Atlanta’s Zaccharie Risacher, Washington’s Alex Sarr, and Memphis teammates Jaylen Wells and Zach Edey.
Buzelis finished seventh in the overall voting, falling 54 points shy of making the first team. Let the debate begin, however.
While Buzelis became the 26th Bulls player to receive All-Rookie honors, his second half was as good as any player in the class, both individually and from a team success standpoint. So good that Buzelis became just the fifth rookie in NBA history – and only Bulls rookie – to total at least 95 three-pointers made and 75 blocks. He joined an elite group of Shane Battier, Victor Wembanyama, Chet Holmgren and Sarr.
What he also did the last six weeks of the regular season was score the fifth most points (299) of this rookie class, shot 39.3% from three-point range, and had the sixth most blocks (27).
Buzelis had four 20-plus-point games in that stretch, including a career-high 31 points in a Mar. 22 win in Los Angeles.
Unfortunately for him, he had a slow start to the year out of the gate, averaging just 5.6 minutes per game in five October games and 12.9 minutes per game in the month of November. After surpassing Patrick Williams in the starting lineup, compounded by the Feb. 2 Zach LaVine trade with Sacramento, the 11th overall pick was unleashed, however, averaging 26.7 minutes per game over his final 31 games.