Do you think a player who signed his LOI is not being given workouts by the coaching staff to complete? What sort of practice was Jaden Jones getting here? He wasn't in the rotation so he was with the scout team most likely. Steve Pikiell and the rest of the coaching staff have a road trip to Michigan coming up, you think they're spending meaningful practice time on a non-rotation player? Practice time in-season is a precious commodity. He got accustomed to the speed of the game? What does that even mean?
I'm not saying it's a negative. My hypothesis is that whatever positive benefits exist are very unlikely to show up in a meaningful way. There were a lot of early enrollees last season, I look forward to my hypothesis being tested.
To test your hypothesis (that a head start doesn't help), we would need to do more than look at one player (Palmquist) and then generalize to all players. This is not a reasonable generalization: Palmquist came early and he wasn't good. Therefore, an early start won't help with any other player.
And you are creating a ludicrous strawman where it either makes no difference, or it makes any player who gets it a good player. Nobody here is saying that a 5 month head start will make any player good. That's not the hypothesis that any other person on this board is suggesting but you. A bad player might improve from 5 months of work and still overall be a bad player, even though they improved. People are saying it makes a difference. A bad player with a 5 month head start is still a bad player. And a 1 and done lottery pick is still a great player, even if they would have been better with more practices and experience.
So back to reality, Jones is billed as a very good player. And the thing that freshmen good players need to live up to their potential is experience. A 5 month head start seems, DUH, to be something that would help a player like Jones be able to have an impact this year.