re: When is Griff honeymoon period over?

Keep in mind lots of players fail to exhibit good defense early in their careers.

AD was pretty terrible at team and individual defense outside of hunting for block stats his first couple seasons. Everyone thought he’d come into the league and at a minimum look like a young Marcus Camby but his offensive development, which was also not there his first seasons, far out paced his defensive development.

Frankly it was only late in his time here where he was playing defense consistently well and not having mental mistakes.

I think one interesting thing that came out of the ESPN broadcast is that Griff/Gundy do seem serious about Zion being more of a 4/3 than a 4/5. They talked about how they are slowly trying to develop him into a perimeter defender and improve his jumpshot and other skillsets so he can operate better in that capacity because they just don’t see him as a 5.