In the final ten games of Ivey’s rookie season he averaged

• 22ppg
• 7.4 apg
• 44 FG%
• 40 3P%

For his whole rookie year he averaged 16 and 5 on 42%.

I get his defensive concerns, but with someone of his offensive upside we really should see what he’s capable of, especially when our team is so bad anyways. I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again he has the highest ceiling on our roster. It seems inevitable he becomes at least a 20ppg scorer at some point, the question is can he be more than that? Defensively there’s question marks, but also so much potential given his athleticism. He also has excellent court vision and playmaking tendencies, he just needs to control the turnovers.

It constantly felt like Monty had to prove he was the smartest guy in the room. Benching Ivey felt like a way to attain dominance in the locker room and it felt more like a misguided attempt to prove he knew something about this roster no one else could see rather than it being an actual coaching tactic. There’s no rational reason it should’ve taken this long, and the end result of this is Ivey being pissed off, Cade having a rockier start than necessary, and the team having several losses we probably wouldn’t have if our rotation was better. A significant reason for our rocky start is Monty. Yes our roster lacks talent and has problems regardless, but if Monty had coached differently we likely would have won twice as many games. Many of our losses have been close, and many of our lineups were unjustifiable in those close losses.

I understand Monty wanting to see what his roster is capable of, but Ivey is clearly the second most talented player on this roster and the only player besides Cade who can consistently create their own shot. Our starting lineup desperately needed his skillset and I’m deeply concerned it took Killian’s injury for Monty to realize this.