Hornets rookie Malik Monk grew up watching LeBron James. What does James think of him now?

Charlotte Hornets rookie Malik Monk grew up watching LeBron James, but now he’ll finally get a chance to play against him.

Or rather, he’ll get a chance to play against him again.

Technically Monk and James have shared the court before, back in 2013 when Monk attended one of James’ skills camps as a freshman in high school. Monk said he followed James as a kid, and that he was one of the youngest players at the camp amongst a crop of future NBA players.

“He showed up, played a couple of games,” Monk said of that first encounter with James. “I was on the court with him, so that was cool.”

But when the two take the court Wednesday night – when Monk and the Hornets host James and a struggling Cleveland Cavaliers team – there won’t be any time to marvel across the hardwood at one another. Instead each of them will be asked to help carry the offensive burdens for their respective teams.

And James knows that Monk is more than capable of doing so. James said before the game that his ties at the University of Kentucky enabled him to watch Monk play in college. As for his impressions?

“You know, he has an ability to catch fire very fast,” James said. “We, as his opponent now, have to understand that when he comes in the game, he has the ability to go off for one of those 15-point quarters.”

Monk’s reputation as an electric bench scorer isn’t any newfound development, though. He regularly torched opponents in his one season as a Wilcat, but perhaps the best example was his ridiculous game against the eventual national champion, North Carolina, when the teams played last December. Monk had 47 points that game, a freshman record for Kentucky, including eight 3-pointers (on only 12 attempts).

Now in the NBA, Monk has proven at times that he’s capable of the same sort of outbreak, like when he scored 18 points in the fourth quarter alone (with four made 3-pointers) against the Milwaukee Bucks on November 1.

It’s that, “ability to shoot and just make shots,” as James described it, that justified the Hornets selecting Monk 11th overall in this summer’s NBA draft. So far this season Monk is averaging 9.6 points per game.

And even though Monk said he and James don’t have a relationship, that won’t stop James from keeping his eyes on the rookie tonight.

“We’ve got to be very aware of him,” James said, “but he’s going to be a very good pro, man.”

This story was originally published November 15, 2017 at 1:49 PM with the headline "Hornets rookie Malik Monk grew up watching LeBron James. What does James think of him now?."