Devon Hall is Armani Exchange Milan's Swiss Army knife / News - Basketnews.com

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When AX Armani Exchange Milan were about to sign Devon Hall last summer, I reached out to several people in the basketball environment to get their pulse on this move. Personally, I already had good feelings about Hall after watching him play in Germany for Bamberg, and he definitely looked like a player on the rise to me.

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The reactions that I got from the people I reached out to did nothing but confirm my feelings about the move.

"It's a great move. Devon Hall is definitely EuroLeague ready", an NBA scout told me.

"Milan just made a steal, Hall is a great player. To me, he is like a younger version of Darrun Hilliard, and as of right now, he costs them maybe half of what Hilliard would," it's what a European executive replied when I asked about Hall.

After signing a two-year deal until 2023, Devon Hall hit the ground running in Milan. Differently from other offseason additions to the team, Hall started to produce right away and immediately became a key factor inside Ettore Messina's system.

The American guard is averaging 10.0 points per game with 1.9 assists and 1.9 rebounds in EuroLeague while shooting 38.5% from 3-point.

He's playing almost 27 minutes per game in EuroLeague and a little bit more than 25 per game in the Italian league, where he's rarely part of the turnover and has missed only a couple of games.

For a rookie at this level, his impact on the team has been absolutely impressive. Messina relies a lot on him, and Hall has basically become a sort of Swiss army knife for the Italian head coach.

He does everything that the team needs based on the moment. When Armani was in need of playmaking, with Sergio Rodriguez and Malcolm Delaney out, Hall played as the de-facto point guard of the team.

Although he remains mostly a shooting guard (he played around 65% of his minutes in that role), Hall is ready to give his contribution in any way. He is always disciplined, with the ability to make the right decisions. Rational but also ready to step up when the moment requires it. His advanced numbers have been absolutely impressive so far.

2-pointers this season

52%17,9Points made:17,9Accuracy:51,7%Place in standings:16Record max:25Record min:12Most made 2FGs:Shavon ShieldsTeamEuroLeagueStatisticsSchedule

As of right now, Hall has a 113.7 offensive rating and a 105.2 defensive rating with an 8.5 net rating, all of whom are excellent by the EuroLeague standards. The American rookie also has a 5.5% assist percentage and 10.8% turnover percentage, with a 1.8 assist/turnover ratio, which is among the best in the EuroLeague competition.

When Armani Exchange Milan lost Kevin Punter last summer, there was a bit of concern that his offensive skills might have been difficult to replace. But the arrival of Devon Hall didn't disappoint the fans.

Sure, Hall is a different type of player from Punter. He's less of a pure scorer, but he has the ability to impact the game in many different ways, which makes him extremely valuable for the club.

Punter, moreover, signed a very lucrative deal for Partizan Belgrade, and the price of his new contract was one of the reasons that led to the departure of the American guard from Milan.

From a financial perspective, Hall was definitely a steal for Armani Exchange. The former Bamberg guard signed a two-year deal worth around $350k, sources told BasketNews. However, the original salary has already been raised during the season, another source told BasketNews.

This move happened when Armani Exchange Milan signed Ben Bentil at the end of 2021 to cover the absence of Greek forward Dinos Mitoglou, who had suffered a foot injury. Bentil, represented by the same agency as Devon Hall (Octagon), had renounced a good chunk of the salary that he was making in Turkey to join Milan.

So on that occasion, the Italian side and the agency found an agreement on a raise for Hall, who was already playing at a really good level for the team, sources told BasketNews.

Since Hall is performing so well for the team, it wouldn't be surprising to see Milan trying to extend his contract during the offseason, adding at least one more year to the original deal signed last summer, which runs through 2023.

From shutting down Shane Larkin on 1vs1 to blocking Nikola Milutinov, Devon Hall is making big-time plays when it's needed and has quickly become a key player for a team full of veterans and with a lot of experience.

Even the relationship with Messina is really strong, and the player has highlighted how much the coach has taught him so far.

"It's been great," Hall said on the EuroLeague TV show hosted by his teammate Kyle Hines. "He challenges you in a way, he almost wants perfection out of you. He pushes you hard, he coaches you hard, and he taught me a ton: taking my time on pick & roll, how to use my body to be physical, just how to be aggressive, when to be assertive, what to look for. He's been great for me."

Tough love it's one of the main qualities of Messina. He can be very hard on the player, but he does it because he wants perfection out of them. His experience has taught him what competing at the highest level requires, and he translates that to his players.

A few years ago, during a coaching clinic, coach Messina said: "I know that by definition, I'm a pain in the ass, but I don't do that for fun, I'm not hard on players just to annoy them, I do it because I want them to play in the way that competition requires to do it."

"I ask them to do certain things not because I like it but because they taught me that when you have to do these things at the highest level, that's the way you have to do it. Because if you don't do it that way, you'll find an opponent that won't let you do it," he added.

Hall is learning all these lessons, and he's providing every single thing that the team needs when the team needs it.

It looks like they were right, this kid was definitely EuroLeague ready in any way possible.

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