Sleepy51 wrote:3 - We agree the kind of players we surround him with is key. Passing is contagious. If he plays for years in an iso, stationary, ballhog system then he's going to develop those tendencies. You replace some of the poor passers or selfish/lazy floorgame players and he will become a different player. If anything will limit his ceiling, it's how this team/system evolves next year. No point in being a unselfish passer if your teammates don't do the work to get themselves in good position to score. Most of our guards are bad teammates in that regard.
4 - players make leaps once they are already inthe league? Monta is simply different material than we are accustomed to observing. High School players are still largely unknown as far as any consistent development paths. KG & Kobe have nothing in common with D Miles. There really are so few of them that the sample is way too small to project one guy's experience onto another. Monta comes to the party late in terms of being a pro with so little quality foundational experiences, but he somehow seems to have shown up unspoiled. He doesn't have bad playground tendencies. He doesn't have an obstinate streak. He does seem to absorb coaching and has been willing to work on his game as instructed. He's been a learning machine out there. We don't usually see that in young guards, and we don't have a lot of experience with HS draftee guards to judge his progress and ceiling by. This is not Seabass telfair, or Cupkake Green (who are both bonafinde dummies.) Monta has stayed young in the good ways. He is not so far removed from his prom as to think he knows better than his coaches. The pace he's been learning at so far points to him being a different kind of player.
Developmentally I'm 100% with you on #3. And whatever position he plays, I think that is the key.
IF he fails as a point, then it's the front office's responsibility to get the most out of him as a player because he's immensely talented and as you say he has an amazing capacity to learn and improve.
However, given the lack of quality foundational experiences that you noted, it is just important that we are patient.
Agreed.
