Mario Hezonja’s rookie season showed he still has a lot to learn. While other players seem racing ahead of him, Hezonja clearly still needs some seasoning.

Mario Hezonja has had a rough start to the 2017 season.

The Orlando Magic understood when they picked him with the fifth pick in the 2015 Draft out of Croatia that he was a promising prospect who would take some time to blossom into a full rotation player. They hoped he would still be able to provide the shooting the team needed to break through and continue to grow from there.

But his rookie season showed Hezonja still has a lot to learn both on the defensive and the offensive end. The results did not come immediately.

Hezonja has shown some more confidence and signs of life early in his sophomore year. But it is hard not to look at the success so far from Dario Saric — both at the Olympics and with the Philadelphia 76ers — and wonder why.

The way Hezonja developed as a young player in Spain has a lot to do with their different development tracks.

Hezonja did not play too much in Europe. This is why he is, more or less, starting from scratch as a basketball player.

That differs from Dario Saric. The Philadelphia 76ers’ Croatian power forward matured on every basketball team he played in. He established his role on the teams he played, eclipsed those teams, and then entered the NBA.

Saric’s plan to grow as a player is paying off. The Magic should learn from this. Sometimes waiting on a players stashed overseas makes sense.

It worked for Hezonja’s countrymen — Dario Saric and Bojan Bogdanovic. Hezonja’s early NBA struggles likely have to do with his upbringing in basketball.

Patience pays off, and developing for a young player comes easily if he is playing serious minutes, even in a weaker league. Hezonja’s relative inexperience entering the league certainly played a role in the slow start to his career.