NBA analyst on EJ Montgomery’s draft status: ‘I would encourage him to be patient’
Often when one of his players is struggling, John Calipari will talk about how close that player is to turning a corner on the basketball court, even if the eyeball test indicates there’s still a ways to go.
For this moment in Kentucky’s season, that player has clearly been EJ Montgomery.
“He is so close to being what he’s capable of,” Calipari said of the sophomore forward following UK’s win over Florida on Saturday night. “He’s close.”
Kentucky probably still needs at least one more player to step up and join Nick Richards and its three starting guards as a consistent game-to-game contributor. Montgomery, the fifth starter on this UK team, is the most obvious candidate to do that as the Cats march toward the postseason.
Calipari has been talking him up all season — as if he’s trying to will those positive results with his words from press conference podiums — but the consistency just hasn’t been there.
The UK coach’s comments Saturday came after Montgomery — a 6-foot-10 player and former five-star recruit — tallied six points, two rebounds and two blocks in 30 minutes on the court.
He lived up to Calipari’s talk in the first 20 minutes of Tuesday night’s 69-60 victory over Texas A&M, playing with ample energy and producing eight points and seven rebounds in the first half alone. Montgomery quieted back down after halftime — no points, no shots, three rebounds and two turnovers in 19 minutes — but he did come up with a huge offensive rebound and made a terrific pass out of the post for an Immanuel Quickley three in the final, decisive minutes.
Perhaps his performance in Tuesday’s game will lead to better things for Montgomery, but he’ll need to string together several such games to turn the page on his uneven play so far this season.
Underwhelming as a highly touted freshman, Montgomery was expected to have a breakout year as a Kentucky sophomore. Many in recruiting circles thought it would be Montgomery — not Richards — who would emerge as the go-to player in Kentucky’s frontcourt this season. Both saw limited time behind PJ Washington and Reid Travis last season, and — while Richards was also a McDonald’s All-American and five-star high school recruit — Montgomery’s ceiling has always especially intrigued scouts and analysts who have been following him from a young age.
In conversations about Kentucky’s future rosters beyond this season, it was basically assumed that Montgomery would be moving on to the NBA Draft following a successful sophomore campaign.
But in the 24 games heading into Tuesday night’s meeting with Texas A&M — and in 23.1 minutes per game on the court — Montgomery was averaging just 6.3 points and 5.3 rebounds. For every impressive helpside blocked shot, there have been countless instances of getting lost on defense. For every offensive spark, there have been long stretches of invisibility.
“I think he’s turned into a functional Division I basketball player. Now. As a sophomore,” ESPN NBA Draft analyst Jonathan Givony told the Herald-Leader. “But he’s still such an up-and-down guy. For every one of those Mississippi State or Georgia games, there’s just a whole lot of nothing. He plays 20 minutes and he gives you zero points, three rebounds, and you’re like, ‘Was that guy even on the court?’ It’s like they’re playing four on five.”
EJ Montgomery’s draft stock
Givony, whose ESPN rankings do not list Montgomery among the Top 100 prospects for this year’s NBA Draft, got straight to the point when asked what kind of buzz he’s been hearing from league scouts concerning the UK sophomore’s stock.
“I haven’t heard any buzz on him as an NBA player,” he said.
How could a player who’s been so highly touted for so long find himself in such a position? Givony blamed early and outsized expectations for Montgomery’s current predicament.
“I think the recruiting guys, like us, they saw EJ when he was a freshman in high school … looking at him and being like, ‘Wow, this guy has a lot of room to improve. He looks the part. He’s versatile.’ So they kind of pegged him as a top-10 guy, and then even though he made next to zero improvement over the next three years, they never kind of backed off that,” Givony said. “They always kind of felt like, ‘At some point, he’ll show something to justify that ranking.’ And it still hasn’t happened.”
Givony pointed back to an Adidas Nations event in 2014 — still several weeks before Montgomery’s 15th birthday — as a moment when he emerged as a national recruit. Before his sophomore year of high school, he was the No. 5 prospect in the 247Sports composite rankings for the 2018 class. He ended up as a McDonald’s All-American and a unanimous top-15 recruit — 247Sports even ranked him No. 6 in his class, one spot ahead of Zion Williamson — but much of that hype continued to be predicated on long-term potential.
For Montgomery, the sustained results still haven’t come.
Givony, who spoke to the Herald-Leader before the Texas A&M game, mentioned Montgomery’s earlier positive contributions in UK wins over Georgia (10 points and six rebounds) and Mississippi State (12 points and eight rebounds), but those remain the only two games since Dec. 7 where he’s scored in double figures. That Mississippi State victory started a run in which Montgomery grabbed at least eight rebounds in three of four games. He grabbed two rebounds in each of the two games that followed before his 10 rebounds Tuesday night.
Every time it looks like things might be clicking, it just doesn’t last.
“So, from there to being in the draft, I just don’t see it,” Givony said. “I would encourage him to be patient and really think about unpacking his bags for even the next two years and just try to turn into a functional player so he can play professional basketball. Because the G League spits guys like that out instantly.”
Another season at Kentucky?
There’s obviously still time for Montgomery to emerge as a pro prospect this season, but that time is running short, and past results make it seem unlikely, especially now that Kentucky’s team is establishing its identity as a group built around Richards and the three guards.
Montgomery will have opportunities this offseason to impress pro scouts in individual workouts, but so will plenty of others with more proven results at the college level.
His best path toward a lengthy pro career is likely another year (or two) at Kentucky.
“People aren’t going to be as patient with him as Cal has been,” Givony said. “Cal is starting him every game — part of it is he’s got no options — but, yeah, before he goes off and leaves this very comfortable place that he’s at — you know, where he’s getting a little bit better over time, and he’s getting an opportunity, at least — I’d be very hesitant, if I were him.”
Montgomery would surely continue to get ample opportunity as a junior at UK. With Nate Sestina out of eligibility and Richards likely headed to the NBA Draft, Montgomery would be the veteran in a frontcourt lacking experience.
Kentucky has signed power forwards Isaiah Jackson and Lance Ware for next season, but neither is a top-20 recruit and both are projected as multi-year college players. Montgomery lacks Richards’ size and physicality, but he could still emerge as the Cats’ go-to frontcourt player on a roster that — like the current one — is expected to be stacked with perimeter options.
UK assistant coach/big man expert Kenny Payne agreed with Calipari that Montgomery is “close” to being the player those around the program — and many who have watched him since he was 14 years old — think he can be. Like with Richards, an important step in Montgomery’s evolution on the court starts between the ears.
“I think what happened (is) the mental part of it when he gets that second foul and having to sit, it takes away his aggression and so he goes back to being tentative,” Payne said this week. “But his energy is way better, his rebounding is better, his fighting to make plays for us to win has been really good. Here’s one for you guys: He’s posting up harder than he’s ever posted up.”
Those traits were there in his impressive first half Tuesday night, when he didn’t pick up his first foul until seven seconds before halftime.
“The second part of that is our guards haven’t passed him the ball,” Payne continued. “We’re in staff meetings and film sessions saying, ‘EJ, why don’t you just punch the guy that’s not passing you the ball? Like, let him know. You want this ball.’ Don’t just accept a guy saying, ‘My fault, my bad.’”
That type of maturity takes time to develop. Perhaps, like with Richards, another year of college could bring the true turning point in Montgomery’s game.
“For him, it’s just like, ‘Where are you going to play professional basketball, period?’ That’s something that is not a lock by any means. It’s an uphill battle,” Givony said. “You look at some of these guys that were at Kentucky three or four years ago, not all of them are playing at a high level. So that’s something that he’s got to think about, you know?”
