Mario Hezonja on early NBA struggles: 'It cost me maybe four years in the NBA to understand this stuff'

“I’m a lot different,” Hezonja said. “You are drafted fifth in the draft. You are the best player in the world, and good luck to somebody older, much wiser than you, explaining to you, ‘Hey, you’re not yet that.’ So you kind of want to eat the whole world. You want to kill everybody. You want to be this version of a player that you have in your head, but sometimes it doesn’t go the route that you imagine that it’s gonna go. “And then you mentally are so young that you’re not prepared to take the impact of these side routes towards your goal. So on the way, I mean, it cost me maybe four years in the NBA to understand this stuff.”

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“I’m a lot different,” Hezonja said. “You are drafted fifth in the draft. You are the best player in the world, and good luck to somebody older, much wiser than you, explaining to you, ‘Hey, you’re not yet that.’ So you kind of want to eat the whole world. You want to kill everybody. You want to be this version of a player that you have in your head, but sometimes it doesn’t go the route that you imagine that it’s gonna go. “And then you mentally are so young that you’re not prepared to take the impact of these side routes towards your goal. So on the way, I mean, it cost me maybe four years in the NBA to understand this stuff.”