Why is Matas Buzelis on the move?

November isn’t always the most consequential month for NBA or WNBA teams — but the Chicago Bulls and the Chicago Sky are currently facing significant questions as they continue to navigate their versions of roster rebuilds.

The Bulls are in the early weeks of their first NBA season without DeMar DeRozan in three years. And the Sky are preparing for a new era after hiring new coach Tyler Marsh over the weekend.

What’s most important to know about either team? Here are answers to a few top questions from fans of the Sky and the Bulls as they approach crucial points of the year. The questions have been condensed and lightly edited.

Who will the Sky protect in the expansion draft? — @quitalovesports

The WNBA will host an expansion draft on Dec. 6 for the Golden State Valkyries, the first of three new franchises joining the league in the next two seasons. Teams can protect six players on their roster from selection and the Valkyries will be able to select one unprotected player from each roster. Golden State can only select one unrestricted free agent in this process.

The expansion draft will be a blow to deep rosters in the WNBA such as the Minnesota Lynx and the New York Liberty. For the Sky, however, this process should be straightforward. The franchise has five clear assets to protect: Kamilla Cardoso, Angel Reese, Elizabeth Williams, Michaela Onyenwere, and Chennedy Carter.

Protecting Cardoso and Reese is an automatic choice. Williams is a crucial veteran leader who just re-signed with the team. And restricted free agents like Onyenwere and Carter are valuable as assets to build with and as potential sign-and-trade options if general manager Jeff Pagliocca wants to wheel and deal in the New Year.

My final selection would be Rachel Banham, who has been a valuable locker room leader in addition to boosting 3-point shooting off the bench. Banham is also a solid asset as a player who can be attached to trades given her strong standing and flexible contract.

Isabelle Harrison could be another potential asset to protect if the Sky are interested in retaining their backup forward. But since she is an unrestricted free agent, the Valkyries would need to core her if they selected her in the expansion draft (rather than simply signing her to a team-friendly deal on the open market), so the Sky wouldn’t be risking much by leaving her unprotected.

What is the value of moving Matas Buzelis back and forth between the first team and the G League? Is there any difference between playing with Ignite versus playing with the Windy City Bulls? — Barton Shaw and @miserabulls

Roster Update: Matas Buzelis has been assigned to the @WindyCityBulls. pic.twitter.com/fgZrGb5F4R

— Chicago Bulls (@chicagobulls) November 2, 2024

Buzelis needs playing time — and the Bulls are moving him around to ensure that he gets as much time as possible on the court. On Saturday, for example, they pulled Buzelis down to Windy City for one day to scrimmage against the Iowa City Wolves, then sent him right back up to the first team.

Buzelis already spent a year in the G League playing for Ignite — a now-defunct team meant to offer an alternative to college for prospective NBA stars — so it’s fair to ask how much is left to learn for the rookie in the minor leagues.

Playing with Windy City is different. In his G League minutes, Buzelis will be coached by Billy Donovan III — the son of Bulls coach Billy Donovan — who will be tasked with instilling similar expectations and tactics. This should translate to higher discipline and teaching than the Ignite program. Buzelis will still be playing with fellow professionals — some of whom are veteran age — offering him a higher level of mentorship and experience to build as a professional.

But Buzelis needs NBA minutes to progress to NBA stature. It’s not surprising the Bulls want to ease him into his rookie season — he was, after all, only 19 when he was drafted. His teammates and coaches have been vocally complimentary of Buzelis’ eagerness to learn and ability to absorb mistakes. If the Bulls haven’t found a way to implement a normal rotation (think 15 minutes per game) for Buzelis by midseason, it could raise a red flag that the Bulls are being overly cautious with the rookie’s development.

How should the Sky approach the 2025 WNBA draft? Should the lottery pick be used on a point guard or a shooting guard? Would they trade any picks? — James Smith, @juloccd, Eli Lam, Sam Clayton

The draft was the focus of most of the Sky-related questions I received for this mailbag, but these are a few of the most important distinctions in that line of questioning.

The Sky will certainly hold onto their picks in 2025 after Pagliocca spent most of his first year as general manager recouping the team’s draft stock with a series of fairly painful trades, including sending away Kahleah Copper and Marina Mabrey. If the Sky make any trades surrounding the draft this year, it would only be to move up to secure a higher pick.

The Sky have two major priorities in this draft: perimeter shooting and ball facilitation. Neither pick needs to provide both qualities, but the draft should holistically bolster these two areas. The answer of which position (and which player) to take can’t be answered until the spring for two reasons.

First, the Sky need to see how they fare on the free agent market. Finding a facilitator is the primary concern for the Sky to become competitive on offense. If the Sky can land a lead guard in free agency, however, they can shift focus slightly to acquire lengthy shooting talent in the draft. If not, they should use their lottery pick (which will be determined on Nov. 17) to invest in a ballhandler to helm the team in the long term.

The second reason is the talent pool itself. This year’s draft class is chock full of talented guards who still need to prove themselves in key areas, namely their shooting proficiency and their ability to stay healthy. We’ll dig into who the Sky should be scouting in more detail in the coming weeks, but here’s a long list to get familiar with in the meantime: Olivia Miles, Azzi Fudd, Sonia Citron, Rori Harmon, Georgia Amoore, Te-Hina Paopao, Aneesah Morrow, Raven Johnson, Ajsa Sivka, Saniya Rivers, Janelle Salaün, Charlisse Leger-Walker, and Bree Hall.

Could the Bulls play Jalen Smith and Nikola Vučević at the same time to mitigate their size disadvantage? — @DarrellvsRell

Two-big lineups have been an interesting conundrum for the Bulls over the past few years, mainly due to their lack of a supporting cast in the frontcourt. Donovan opted to play centers Nikola Vučević and Andre Drummond simultaneously to limited success last season, logging only 204 minutes across 24 games. The pair had a minus-1 net rating when they were on the court together, greatly boosting rebounds while dramatically slowing the offense’s pace and production.

Without Drummond, the Bulls are even smaller this year. Newcomer Jalen Smith and fifth-year forward Patrick Williams are the only other interior bigs on the roster — and at 6-foot-9 and 6-foot-7 respectively, they still don’t offer much mass against bigger teams like the Milwaukee Bucks. But this lack of size is actually an argument against doubling up in the post.

The Bulls are trying to play to their strengths rather than fixate on their weaknesses. While playing Smith with Vučević would help with the team’s general size, neither player is an elite enough rim defender to do much more than clog up the paint while sacrificing significantly around the perimeter — which would detract from their ability to run opponents off the 3-point arc, a crucial focus of the Bulls defensive plan this season.

While both bigs are solid shots from deep (Vučević is shooting 48.5% from behind the arc and Smith is shooting 50%), the drop-off in pace wouldn’t allow the Bulls to maintain the core value of their offense. So yes, the Bulls might dabble a bit with these rotations, but I wouldn’t expect them to become a regular staple.

Who will be first to win their next title, the Bulls or the Sky? — @LocalBullsFan

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