Last week while his team was in Toronto life seemed to be pretty good for rookie Jonny Flynn. A bus full of friends and family made the trek from Niagara Falls to Toronto to see him play and when a group of over 10 media members surrounded him before the game his trademark smile stretched from ear-to-ear.

The problem with this image is it’s misleading because Flynn has endured a lot of growing pains so far during his rookie season.

Sure, he’s averaging an impressive 13.7 points and 4.3 dimes in 29.4 minutes, but he’s been slowed down by having to adapt to the way Kurt Rambis wants him to play.

As a point guard who loves to fly up and down the court while creating off the dribble it’s been a tough transition to become a half-court floor general who runs the kinds of methodical sets his head coach wants him to.

Instead of having the ability to freestyle like he did over the past few seasons while playing for Syracuse, Flynn now finds himself in a more structured offense and there have been some noticeable growing pains.

“It’s definitely hard because I’m use to playing a certain style,” a modest Flynn admitted to the media last week. “Just like you being a reporter, if you have a writing style you used your whole life and then someone comes in and tells you that you need to change it a little bit, you’d realize it’s tough. I can admit it’s hard but I think I’ve been getting better over the past few games doing what he wants but it’s going to take time and he’s going to help me through this transition.”

According to his new head coach, this is all part of the learning process any young player needs to endure as they adapt to playing in the NBA.

Sure, it’s painful, but the tough love he’s enduring this season is meant to help him grow into one of the elite players in the league.

“He’s come into the NBA trying to learn the most difficult position there is to learn… and I’m making it very difficult on him by not allowing him to play the way he wants to play,” Kurt Rambis explained to the media during his pre-game media scrum last Tuesday. “I’m teaching him how to organize an offense and how to run a structured system. So he’s going through the adjustment of that as well as learning about NBA players, playing defense at this level, what we want to do as a team at both ends of the floor and there’s a lot of pressure on him to figure those things out quickly.”

Having pressure on Flynn to figure things out quickly was the key part of this explanation. The rookie point guard has been pushed out of his comfort zone and without immediate results or improvement it’s human nature for him to want to revert to his old style of play.

Rambis, however, is looking at a process that will take years, not weeks, for Flynn to fully grasp.

“I understand that process takes years, but for young players they want that to happen quickly,” Rambis explained last week. “They want all that knowledge to be simulated quickly and it just doesn’t happen that way. It occurs over time. I love his passion. I love his work ethic. I love how committed he is to become a terrific ball player in this league. I have a goal and a vision for where I want him to be in the future and I see him being a terrific ball player in this league. He will be somebody that can have an impact on both ends of the floor.”

Here’s the first question that popped into my mind when I heard this: Does the rookie point guard buy into what his coaching is trying to sell him?

Turns out like most young players Flynn is hesitant to buy into this because it’s not showing immediate rewards.

“Hopefully it does,” Flynn told the media when asked if this new style of play will work out. “We’ll see in time if it will make me a better player or not. I think it will, but it just takes time to see if it will.”

Patience, young Jedi.

Adapting to playing in the NBA is a process that will take years, not weeks to fully comprehend. All Flynn has to do is look at elite point guards like Steve Nash or Chauncey Billups to see the first few years of a point guard’s career is usually full of more bumps than highlights.

Luckily for Timberwolves’ fans after talking with Flynn it appears even though he’s frustrated at times with the process he’s in the midst of sees the benefit of buying into what his coach is selling.

Even though it means there will plenty more growing pains this season.