Meet Matas Buzelis, the suburban native who became NBA Draft’s rising star
This story needs to begin with an introduction.
Matas Buzelis was born in Chicago, grew up in Willowbrook, spent one year at Hinsdale Central and is projected to be a top-10 pick in the 2024 NBA Draft.
His next step toward the national spotlight is Friday at NBA All-Star Weekend, where he's slated to participate in the Rising Stars games at Indianapolis.
The 6-foot-10 Buzelis is a smooth, muti-skilled big man, capable of handling the ball and creating for teammates. He's averaged 13.0 points and 6.3 rebounds for G-League Ignite and will make a hometown visit Mar. 1 when Ignite plays the Windy City Bulls at Now Arena in Hoffman Estates.
“He's like Paul George and LaMelo Ball together,” said Buzelis' skills trainer, Dmitry Pirshin. “He has the creative ability like LaMelo Ball. But athletically and just the fluidity of movement, he looks like Paul George.”
A composite NBA mock draft compiled by hoopshype.com has Buzelis going fifth overall. The various mocks place him as high as the third pick, with a low range of 11.
“I'm looking forward to the pre-draft process,” Buzelis said in a phone interview this week. “Getting better and also getting ready to just be drafted, see what team believes in me. I'm ready to work for whoever picks me.”
Buzelis has been flying under the radar because he spent just one year at Hinsdale Central, playing on the sophomore team as a freshman. When the pandemic put the 2020-21 season in doubt, he opted to attend a couple of famous basketball academies. He started at Brewster Academy in New Hampshire, then switched to Sunrise Christian in Kansas as a senior.
“Both areas, there was literally nothing to do,” Buzelis said. “Just basketball and school.”
He was offered by Illinois early in his high school career, and could have chosen any college basketball power, but was never leaning toward college.
“I always knew I was going to go to G-League,” he said. “I always felt I'm not a college system player, so I knew I was going to go to G-League since probably junior year.”
Swimming upstream
The Lituanica Basketball Academy in Lemont is where many in the Lithuanian community learn the game. Their green-clad teams compete at travel tournaments in the area and used to be regulars at the old Bulls-Sox Academy in Lisle.
That's where Buzelis started playing basketball. But he didn't like it. Too much time on the bench, never touching the ball when he did play. The usual complaints.
His parents, Kristina and Aidas, played professionally in Lithuania before moving to Chicago. They decided Matas needed to do something, so swimming became his sport for two or three years. He swam for both the Hornet Swim Club in Darien and Academy Bullets in Aurora.
The return to basketball included a different Lithuanian connection, with former Barrington High School star Rapolas Ivanauskas. He led Colgate to the NCAA Tournament in 2019 and now plays professionally in Japan. Ivanauskas' skills trainer was Steve Pratt from Full Package Sports.
“I went to (Ivanauskas') graduation party and met Matas' parents,” Pratt said. “They were telling me their son was into swimming and they weren't really sure what to do with him. I said, 'Bring him by, we'll see what he can do.'
“You could see he was OK, but he was growing. Then I coached him in a game and the thing I noticed was he had excellent vision. And he was pretty quick for a long kid. So I just put him at point guard and I told Dmitry, 'Play him at the point, develop him as a point guard.'”
Pratt basically passed Buzelis over to Pirshin, who was coaching a Full Package sixth grade team. The roster had plenty of height, including former Rolling Meadows center Mark Nickolich-Wilson, so Pirshin was able to use Buzelis at the point.
“He was just a great teammate always,” said Pirshin, who is also head coach at Carmel High School in Mundelein. “He had a very good gift of reading the game well. In our program, I usually play through my best playmakers. It doesn't matter who they are or how big they are.”
The long commute
This plan required some sacrifice, because Full Package is based in Northbrook and Northfield, a long drive from West Suburban Willowbrook.
But since feeder basketball wasn't as prevalent in that area, Pirshin said Buzelis made the trip every day in the winters with twin brothers Rokas and Matas Castillo from Lemont.
“I found a love for basketball probably around 12-13 years old,” Buzelis said.
Pirshin still trains Buzelis during the summer or whenever he's back in town.
“The twins (now at Wisconsin-Parkside), they beat the heck out of Matas when they were younger,” Pirshin said with a laugh. “Part of why he's tough, credit to those two guys.”
Buzelis said he probably would have stayed at Hinsdale Central, at least through his junior year, if not for the pandemic. His younger brother Vincas is a 6-4 junior for the Red Devils.
These days, Buzelis is living the pro basketball life on the outskirts of Las Vegas. No classes to attend, plenty of time to work on skills and an extensive travel schedule. Ignite plays 52 games, roughly half of those at their home arena in Henderson, Nev.
“It's been awesome,” Buzelis said. “I get to play against the best players, work out with the best players and I've got the best coaches around me. So the development is amazing.”
Ignite season ends on Mar. 28 and then the next phase will begin. Meeting teams, private workouts and generally preparing to walk across the stage and shake Adam Silver's hand at the NBA Draft on June 26.
Buzelis said he doesn't consider himself a point guard, necessarily, but believes he could adapt to any role in the NBA.
“I'm just ready to contribute to whatever,” he said. “I used to play point guard all the time in high school. But the game changes, your game changes. It's just whatever the coach tells me, I'll be ready.”
Twitter: @McGrawDHSports