Let’s agree to disagree. It was not condescending and he answered with what I thought - he didn’t get to watch it. I didn’t say it was Lonnie breakout SZN during the SL, pre-season etc..I said he showed him immense potential, which I believe he did. The fact you knew exactly what I was talking about with out mentioning it (Harden possessions) lends me to believe you saw the potential too.
Is it better to see it in an actual game? Yes. But I was simply saying that the defensive potential didn’t come out of no where. We had seen glimpses before of that potential with what evidence we had (because he wasn’t playing real NBA games yet).
Maybe our definition of showing potential is different but to me that means you are looking for moments from a young player where you can go “wow, he’s capable of that type of moment? Hmmm, wonder if that is something he can do consistently”. Watching him use his athleticism against Harden in the pre-season, coupled with other moments like that in the G-league and SL gave me more than enough hope he could be a top notch defender.
I’ve posted about it well before this game too about why I thought he would be a big + on that end so its not after-the-fact-ism either