Matas Buzelis is headed back to the NBA All-Star weekend.
The Bulls forward was announced as one of 28 players participating in the 2026 Rising Stars challenge during NBA All-Star weekend, which will take place at Intuit Dome in Los Angeles from Feb. 13-15. This year’s Rising Stars class is headlined by fellow young players such as Rookie of the Year front-runners Cooper Flagg and Kon Knueppel.
The Rising Stars team is comprised of standout G League, first-year and second-year players. This is technically Buzelis’ third time participating in the challenge after he was previously selected as an NBA rookie in 2025 and a pre-professional player with G League Ignite in 2024.
But although Buzelis was eager to participate in the Rising Stars challenge, he declined another invitation — to compete in the dunk contest.
Buzelis competed as one of four players in the 2025 dunk contest. It was an unfortunate outing — Buzelis missed every attempt on his opening dunk, finished last in the initial stage and did not advance to showcase his final dunks — a fact that Buzelis openly acknowledged.
“We know how that went,” Buzelis said with a laugh.
Despite last year’s results, Buzelis said the NBA invited him back to the dunk contest this year, but he ultimately declined to participate due to Chicago’s packed schedule ahead of the All-Star break. The Bulls will play nine games in the final 16 days before the All-Star break, including a stretch of five games in seven days this weekend due to a rescheduled game against Miami.
Buzelis only logged a handful of practices before last year’s dunk contest, which he believes played a crucial part in his overall performance. This year’s schedule offers even less time to practice — and the forward is playing a much larger role on the Bulls roster as a starter who averages 28 minutes per game. While Buzelis wants to redeem himself in a future iteration of the competition, he doesn’t feel that participating would be responsible as the Bulls push to improve their playoff positioning.
“I’m trying to listen to my body,” Buzelis said. “This stretch of games coming up is going to be very important for us. Hopefully I get invited again another year because I would love to do it, but this year I’m going to have to decline it.
“I just want to take care of my body. It’s a lot of work to prepare for the dunk contest. It takes a toll on your body. Especially in this stretch of games we have coming, it’s going to be very important for me to be fresh.”
After a tapered start to his rookie season, Buzelis has risen to become one of the most prominent players in the NBA’s sophomore class. He ranks fourth in scoring (14.9 points per game), 10th in rebounding (5.2 rebounds per game) and third in blocks (1.4 blocks per game) among 2025 draftees.
The Rising Stars challenge consists of a four-team tournament that will take place on Feb. 13. Three teams of first- and second-year players will be drafted by honorary coaches Carmelo Anthony, Vince Carter and Tracy McGrady while the final team will be rostered by G League players.
