BBNBA Player of the Week: Malik Monk is finding his groove

Welcome! To a new series I’ll be doing here at KSR!

After each week of NBA action, I’ll be crowning a player of the week among the former Cats in the NBA. It won’t necessarily be the player with the best stats or performances, because that would get boring after four straight weeks of all Anthony Davis.

Instead, I’ll highlight a player who’s played much better than usual over the course of the week, or reward someone who’s had an impressive stretch of games. The idea is to cover the ‘Cat who had the best week for himself. Today, we’re starting with a player who has risen his stock more than any other player in the league over the past week: Malik Monk.

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Monk’s NBA journey hasn’t gone the way anyone planned or hoped. After setting the nets on fire in college next to De’Aaron Fox and Bam Adebayo, he was picked ninth overall in the 2017 NBA Draft for his flamethrower shooting ability in an extraordinarily athletic body. He seemed like a perfect fit in an increasingly three-point-dominant NBA–a bouncy gunner with range.

However, suspensions, poor defense, infrequent focus and effort, and above all, inconsistent shooting buried Monk on the Hornets’ rotation. He’d spout off for 25 in a couple of meaningless late-season games during his first couple of years but never cracked the regular rotation in his first three seasons and sat while watching his college teammates develop into stars.

Earlier this year, he wasn’t even a part of the lineup, only playing in four of Charlotte’s first 17 games, and never staying on the court longer than 10 minutes in three of those. Around the league, pretty much everyone had given up hope on Monk turning into anything worthwhile. Then came February.

Halfway through his fourth season…Malik Monk is finally figuring it out.

Monk isn’t quietly rising up in the Charlotte rotation, his emergence has been loud and statistically remarkable. Over his past five games, Monk is averaging over 20 points and is making four triples per-game at a 47.6% clip. His totals over that span are 29, 25, 23, 20, and a lone stinker of seven, all of them coming off the bench.

In the three games Charlotte played this past week, Monk scored 20+ in each, shot well over 50% from three and grabbed over four rebounds per game, helping lead them to their best win of the season in a shootout victory at Phoenix, with Monk and Booker going back and forth.

Extrapolating to the entire month, Monk is averaging 16.3 points, 4 rebounds and 1.8 assists in February after having scored more than 10 points just one time in December and January.

The per-game numbers this season won’t grab your eyes, but it’s his efficiency and per-36 numbers that have keyed his breakout. He’s shooting 47% from three on the year, and on high volume, legitimately making him one of the NBA’s best shooters.

Per every 36 minutes Monk is on the court–36 minutes is about how much a team’s best player will play per-game–he’s scoring 20.7 points to go along with 4.7 rebounds and nearly 3 assists. That’s no fluke, and those numbers reflect not only his recent streak but also his inconsistent January.

Keep it up, and Monk will have his name in the ring for Sixth Man of the Year or possibly Most Improved Player.

To put it in non-numeric terms: Monk went from a bench-warming afterthought to a lead scorer on a playoff team in eight days. The comparison I think of is mini-Linsanity.

Former Knick Jeremy Lin played in just a handful of games and never cracked 10 points before exploding into a 25-per-game scorer for three weeks in the month of February in 2012. Eight years later, Lin’s legacy is that three-week run in Madison Square Garden. He had other solid seasons but was never a real factor for a playoff team. Obviously, the main difference between the two is Monk’s status as a lottery pick.

One giant question remains: is this just one stray hot streak in an otherwise forgettable career for Monk, who is only 23 years old, or is he announcing his arrival as a high-level scorer for years to come? Consistency has always been his flaw. Consistent shooting, consistent effort, consistent behavior off the court.

He won’t maintain this ridiculous level of scoring, he just has to remain efficient while continuing to improve as a passer, defender and decision-maker–all areas where he has taken a huge leap in 2021.

I think this Malik Monk is here to stay, and he will be making quite a few million in the offseason if he keeps it up. Congrats to Malik for staying the course and figuring things out. He’s earned his success.