Do the lowly Chicago Bulls, who have missed the playoffs just once during team president Arturas Karnisovas’ five seasons at the helm, already have a franchise-caliber talent on their current roster?

Although they haven’t been flat-out terrible since a splashy 2021 offseason, the Bulls have been essentially just sub-mediocre in recent years. Chicago has finished with a below-.500 record in each of the club’s play-in tournament-bound seasons.

Because the club isn’t quite good enough, Chicago hasn’t emerged out of the play-in to advance into the playoffs proper in any of those three seasons.

Still, one hoops expert is convinced the Bulls may have stumbled onto a future star in combo forward Matas Buzelis, the hyper-athletic No. 11 pick in the 2024 NBA Draft.

Across 80 healthy bouts for the 39-43 Bulls last year during his rookie season, the 6-foot-10 wing averaged 8.6 points on .454/.361/.815 shooting splits, 3.5 rebounds, 1.0 assists and 0.9 blocks per – across just 18.9 minutes. He finished seventh in Rookie of the Year voting, and made the 2025 All-Rookie Second Team.

Joel Lorenzi of The Athletic submits that Buzelis at least has star upside – even if his ceiling may just be as the third-best player on a title team, that’s still pretty darn appetizing.

“How high is Matas Buzelis’ ceiling? How highly does this front office view his ceiling?” Lorenzi asks.

Lorenzi goes on to speculate as to whether Buzelis could be a franchise-level piece for Chicago – and just how much of a franchise-level player he could be.

“If the Indiana Pacers are the template, the Bulls should eye their foundation. Tyrese Haliburton was grown in the Pacers’ lab, accentuated by other quiet, system-defining acquisitions they made,” Lorenzi notes. “At his best, Haliburton looked like a top-12ish player leaguewide and an even better clutch performer. Indiana’s offense is activated by his retina scan, though the lineups without him – those composed of players assembled with him in mind – hardly seemed to dip. And to think, Haliburton might be on the lower end of first options capable of leading a team on an NBA Finals run.”

Haliburton, 25, is already a two-time All-NBA talent, and he propelled Indiana to the 2025 Finals with a pass-first ethos, albeit as the head of a snake in head coach Rick Carlisle’s fairly egalitarian offense.

“Do the Bulls think they house a player like that? Or can incubate one to the point of hatching? Should they even hinge their hopes on that? If Buzelis ends up closer to Pascal Siakam in terms of impact, that’s a major win,” Lorenzi writes. “He’d be a talented second option capable of raising the ceiling for a team that didn’t necessarily need an All-NBA first-teamer. Even a future as a third option would make Buzelis a prize. But it should go without saying that if a player on that track is leading a team, it won’t be to the finals.”

The 31-year-old Siakam, it should be noted, is a three-time All-Star and two-time All-NBA honoree, and was the second-best player on a club that pushed the eventual champion Oklahoma City Thunder to seven games in this summer’s NBA Finals. He’s already been the third-best player on a title team, too, as a critical contributor to the 2019 Toronto Raptors behind All-Stars Kawhi Leonard and Kyle Lowry.

The fact that Lorenzi believes Buzelis has a shot at reaching either of these levels should entice the superstar-starved Chicago faithful.

Guards Coby White and Josh Giddey also have at least All-Star ceilings, although the fit of those two players and Buzelis together remains an open question.

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