Quinn said:
I know Gunn has said this before, but I am not a fan of the idea that this is a new Groot. that's not how it played at all for me when I saw GotG1, either. I assumed they were able to save original Groot and that it would just take awhile for him to grow back to normal size.
he's basically a tree cutting. So, a clone. Genetically, he'd be the same, but doesn't have any of old groot's memories. I'm okay with that.
In GOTG1, old groot was blown to smithereens, maybe in order to retain memories, they'd need a piece of his head wood, but rocket got a finger twig or something. It grows into a whole new plant that is genetically identical, but is it's own organism.