Approximately once a month, The Athletic’s NBA Draft analyst and senior writer Sam Vecenie is going to take a deep dive into the rookie class and analyze the players in the only way writers know how: with rankings. This is a ranking of the most effective rookies thus far in the NBA. Due to the strange nature of this NBA season, we took an extra couple of weeks before bringing these back. But they’re back, and they’re ready to be dissected.
| Rank | Player | Team | Previous | Points | Rebounds | Assists | Steals | Blocks |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Cleveland Cavaliers | 1 | 14.7 | 8.2 | 2.6 | 0.8 | 1.8 | |
2 | Toronto Raptors | 2 | 15.5 | 8.1 | 3.3 | 1.1 | 1 | |
3 | Orlando Magic | 3 | 15.7 | 4.6 | 2.7 | 1.1 | 0.5 | |
4 | Detroit Pistons | 4 | 15.3 | 6.2 | 5.3 | 1.4 | 0.6 | |
5 | Oklahoma City Thunder | 6 | 11 | 7.3 | 6.4 | 1 | 0.5 | |
6 | Indiana Pacers | 5 | 13.2 | 4 | 2.2 | 1 | 0.1 | |
7 | New Orleans Pelicans | 8 | 8.2 | 3.7 | 1.8 | 1.3 | 1 | |
8 | Houston Rockets | 9 | 9 | 4.8 | 2.6 | 0.9 | 0.9 | |
9 | Chicago Bulls | 13 | 6.2 | 2.1 | 1.2 | 0.4 | 0.4 | |
10 | Houston Rockets | t10 | 15.5 | 2.9 | 2.3 | 0.7 | 0.2 | |
11 | Oklahoma City Thunder | 14 | 7.5 | 5.8 | 0.8 | 0.5 | 0.3 | |
12 | Sacramento Kings | 7 | 9.7 | 2.4 | 3.4 | 0.7 | 0.2 | |
13 | Orlando Magic | t10 | 12.3 | 3.4 | 3.6 | 1.1 | 0.4 | |
14 | Los Angeles Lakers | 12 | 5.8 | 2.5 | 1.1 | 0.3 | 0.1 | |
15 | Oklahoma City Thunder | N/A | 6.8 | 2.9 | 0.9 | 0.6 | 0.2 |
I will remind readers: This is a full-season ranking, not just a recency ranking. The total body of work is what goes into account here. The top four stay the same from our initial rankings for a few reasons. Quickly, let’s go through the top two.
Evan Mobley has missed some time due to health and safety protocols as well as a minor elbow injury, but he’s still, in my view, the most important player on a team currently battling for a top-four seed in the Eastern Conference. He’s the best defensive rookie I’ve seen in the last decade, and his offensive production is just about on par with those below him. With all due respect to the tremendous rookies below him here, I do not see a case for any other player to be on top of a full-season rookie ranking exercise right now, and I explained why in greater detail recently with our Cavaliers’ beat writer Kelsey Russo. If winning is supposed to matter at all — and for me, it does — being the biggest, most important piece of a top-10 team in the league is the ultimate trump card.
Advertisement
After Mobley, I think Scottie Barnes did juuuuust enough to stay at No. 2, largely through continued growth and comfort as a shooter. Over his last 11 games, Barnes has nearly doubled his volume in terms of 3-point output, taking four 3-pointers per game and making them at a 41.3 percent clip. If he keeps shooting at anywhere near that clip and with this confidence, Barnes is going to be a star. There’s no way around it. He’s averaging 16.5 points, 8.5 rebounds and nearly four assists over that time and has also been a solid, switchable defender. That was, just barely, enough to keep him ahead of the next guy. But Franz Wagner is charging at No. 3 and has been absolutely outstanding over the last month.
Franz Wagner: showcasing drastically more upside as a pro
Wagner has made this go from a two-person to a three-person race at the top at nearly the midway point, and it’s largely because of proficiency in a role he didn’t get to play at Michigan.
At Michigan, Wagner was everything NBA teams look for from a connective player on offense. He was extremely smart and always made the right decision on the court — be it the extra reversal pass, the perfectly timed cut, the right kickout off a drive or the right choice in terms of going up for an open shot. There was very little hesitation in his game, and he was a consummate professional as a teenager in his second year in college. On top of that, he could act as a secondary ballhandler who could make high-level passing reads out of ball screens and showcased real potential as a shooter. The thought was that Wagner would be excellent within scheme and would be able to play very early. But he also was never the primary guy at Michigan, either. He was the team’s third-leading scorer and had plenty of games where he was just kind of a Milford Man who blended into the fabric of what Michigan was doing. He had 11 games in which he scored single digits as a sophomore versus just 10 games in which he scored more than 15 points.
It’s clear that nearly every evaluator drastically underestimated Wagner’s potential to be even a No. 2 scoring option in the NBA. At just 20 years old, Wagner is already outstanding within his role and continuing to grow into it confidently. Over the last 15 games entering Monday, Wagner was averaging 20 points, five rebounds and three assists while shooting 47 percent from the field, 38 percent from 3 and 87 percent from the line. That’s basically Tobias Harris-level production and efficiency, and much like with Harris, it actually feels sustainable and like it’s coming within the flow of the offense. He’s meshed the decision-making side with improved scoring volume and just hasn’t seen any sort of drop-off in terms of his overall play.
Advertisement
We’re at the point where Orlando is letting him just bring the ball up the court at times, and he’s rewarding the team with some ridiculously impressive moments as an on-ball creator out of ball screens. Here’s one quick one, where Wagner brings the ball up and is defended by a good on-ball guy in Khris Middleton. He takes a middle ball screen from Wendell Carter, and he and Carter intuitively recognize that Middleton has overplayed. Wagner hits a quick behind-the-back dribble into a flipped screen by Carter. Wagner then takes a quick pair of controlled dribbles with his body shielding the ball and sees Giannis Antetokounmpo waiting at the rim as the drop defender in the ball-screen coverage. Instead of attacking the former Defensive Player of the Year, he steps into a nice little floater.
It’s also relatively easy to forget Wagner is 6-foot-9 with how dexterous he is with the ball in his hands and how fluid he is as an athlete. But then he makes moves like this, and you remember just how much length he’s working with. Here, he gets even just the slightest angle on Pat Connaughton. Connaughton does a reasonable job of sliding to stay in front, but because Wagner has that little bit of leverage from the extra bit of space Connaughton gives him to get downhill on the drive, he can just plant and elevate over the top of the 6-foot-5 wing for an easy finish.
Despite Orlando being the worst team in the NBA in terms of record, none of this feels like a player who is just putting up numbers on a bad team. All of this comes within the flow of the offense. Wagner rarely takes bad shots and rarely turns the ball over. He makes the 3s in rhythm that are created for him, and he passes well. Those are the skills that make him the kind of player who, even right now, is scalable to a winning situation. However, I’m kind of happy he’s in the spot he’s in now in Orlando. Because he’s playing for a bad team, he’s really getting a chance to explore the studio space and expand his game in a way that might really help him and the Magic in the future as they rebuild. His overall game was always going to be the kind that helped a contender. But these on-ball reps are invaluable for the growth of his game long term.
Alperen Şengün: passing savant, defensively questionable
Turkish Rockets rookie Alperen Şengün has undeniably been one of the most fun rookies to track in the league so far this season. His fluidity and coordination at 6-foot-10 are ridiculous. He’s mobile, but more than that, he’s also constantly moving. Just watch this possession below, where in the course of 12 seconds, Şengün sets a ball screen, goes and finds two off-ball screens (only one of which looks like it’s a definite part of the set, as that second little flare screen looks like an improvised communication between Şengün and David Nwaba), sets another on-ball screen for D.J. Augustin, short rolls and catches a pass, looks cross-corner, sees it’s not there, then instead hits a 45-cutter with a beautiful bounce pass for a bucket.
Şengün’s vision is elite for a big man. It’s hard to overstate how much of a weapon his passing is because he’s constantly in control of the ball. His dexterity with ball-in-hand is wild for a big man. It’s not normal. He’s comfortable putting the ball on the deck multiple times and throwing live-dribble passes. He doesn’t get all that flustered in phone booths on short rolls. But just as much, he can grab and go on the break and lead the Rockets to an easy bucket, as he shows here against the Suns with a beautiful bounce pass to a baseline-cutting Nwaba for a dunk.
As my friend Seth Partnow constantly reminds the public, individual on-court offensive ratings are a team stat, not a player stat. But it’s not an accident that the Rockets run better offensively when Şengün is out there versus when he’s not — despite not playing with the starters all that often. He’s unselfish and fosters both player and ball movement around him. He averages more assists per minute than any center in the league not named Nikola Jokić. He’s a driving threat from the perimeter and a post threat from the interior every time he touches the ball.
Advertisement
The only issue with Şengün right now is that he’s not quite good enough yet on offense to outweigh where he is on defense. His ceiling on offense is remarkably high and abundantly clear; he’s just also 19 years old and still learning. And indeed, that learning curve is real on defense. He gets a ton of deflections, but I wouldn’t say they’re all that impactful in the grand scheme. It’s his first time playing out in the oceans of space that the NBA brings in comparison to European basketball, and with Şengün often sliding down to the four, he’s often left to fend for himself out there. The results can be pretty poor. Sometimes, it’s a full-scale blow-by. Other times, it results in him picking up cheap fouls, which has — in part — worked to reduce his playing time and opportunity. Şengün’s currently averaging six fouls per 36 minutes, the most among any big in the NBA who has played at least 500 minutes this season. The Rockets are allowing their opponent to shoot more free throws than all but one other team in the league this year, and while Şengün isn’t the lone person at fault there, he’s certainly a part of the problem.
A rebuilding team like the Rockets should be more than willing to live with Şengün’s current deficiencies out there to allow him to get the reps he needs to play through his struggles. That’s not to say he shouldn’t be held accountable, and Şengün can be his own worst enemy with fouling. The best ability is availability, and Şengün does need to slow down on his propensity to hack. However, especially in the moments where Christian Wood has turned off the motor and starts to look disinterested, there is probably space for Şengün to play even more than the 18 minutes per night he’s currently seeing over the last month and a half.
Ayo Dosunmu: Energizer Bunny taking advantage of what’s given to him
Welcome to the top 10, Ayo Dosunmu! The second-round pick out of Illinois was an All-American last season in college, so it’s not a huge surprise that he’s found a niche early in his NBA career. But I’m not sure even I expected him to be as helpful as he’s been to the Bulls when I ranked him as a clear first-round grade in the 2021 draft class.
Every single night, Dosunmu is pairing with fellow guard Javonte Green to provide Chicago with an immense amount of energy and toughness. Need someone to chase around Trae Young for a quarter? Dosunmu is on it. After a 12-point, five-assist first quarter last week against Chicago, Dosunmu came in and reeled Young back in a bit in the second. He used his length and quickness to hold Young to 0-for-5 from the field, forced a turnover against him and posted a highlight-reel block on the diminutive dynamo.
The next game, Dosunmu gave Chicago 20 more minutes of great defense on Young. He swatted him twice in that game on drives and added 14 points of his own for good measure. He’s taken tough minutes at times on guys like Bradley Beal and Caris LeVert, and even beyond that, he hasn’t been an offensive liability. He’s absolutely the fourth- or fifth-best player out on the court at all times and has the usage rate that coincides with that. But he takes advantage of what comes to him well. He’s shooting 53 percent from the field and 40 percent from 3. He makes good decisions, runs hard out on the break, cuts off the ball and doesn’t turn it over.
Dosunmu is providing the Bulls with a reasonable facsimile of what Lonzo Ball and Alex Caruso bring to the table when one of that duo isn’t on the court. He’s doing all of the dirty work and all of the little things to help make Zach LaVine and/or DeMar DeRozan prosper. Teams still don’t really buy him as a shooter and tend to leave him open, which makes him a bit less valuable than those guys despite his gaudy mark from 3. But as long as he keeps making them pay when he does take his shot, he’ll keep providing value. He’s played the seventh-most minutes on what is currently the best team in the Eastern Conference. It’s worth giving him his due and crediting him for working his way into a solid role on a really strong team.
Other notes
- I wouldn’t sleep on what we’ve seen from Cade Cunningham over the last little while. After a bumpy start following his return from an ankle injury in the preseason, Cunningham was starting to get rolling just before he entered health and safety protocols. In those prior 18 games, Cunningham was averaging 17 points, six rebounds and six assists. The turnover problem is still working its way out, but he’s shooting the ball at a reasonable clip now and is providing the Pistons with good defense every night. Similar to Jalen Green, the Pistons are disastrously built around Cunningham, giving him no room to operate because they’re currently the worst shooting team in the NBA. Everything about the Cunningham experience has been what Detroit could have expected after he got his feet under him following his injury. To me, he’s kind of in a tier of his own right now in terms of this list: not quite consistently at the level of the top three, but above the tier level of the next group that includes Josh Giddey and Chris Duarte.
- Speaking of the Rockets’ No. 2 overall pick, Green stays steady in the rankings after a lot of time out due to injury then returning like gangbusters statistically and averaging 22.3 points on efficient scoring in his first four games back. Why did he stay at No. 10? Well, have you seen how much better the Rockets have played without him? Again, all caveats aside here, but Houston is 18 points per 100 possessions worse than its opposition with Green on the court versus only one point worse than its opposition when he’s off the court. Part of that is certainly noisy, as it hasn’t helped Green to play next to another inefficient, porous defender in Kevin Porter Jr. for a large portion of his minutes in the starting lineup. But it’s tough to ignore how much better Houston has been simply substituting what Green has brought as a creative offensive player for someone like Garrison Mathews or Armoni Brooks, pure floor spacers who play within themselves and generally at least stay responsible on the defensive end. I always expected Green to have a relatively poor rookie season in terms of impact on his team’s bottom line, so I’m absolutely not panicking here if I’m the Rockets. His shot creation has translated in flashes due to his athleticism. I think he’s going to average 20 points per game for a long time in the NBA. But it’s tough to ignore the team going 8-7 in the 15-game stretch he missed, then going 2-20 in the games he’s played. Given how much I account for team success when a player is on the court and scalability of skill set toward team success, it’s tough to move Green up right now.
- Just on the outside looking in of the top 10: Jeremiah Robinson-Earl! He’s essentially the Thunder’s starting center every night as an undersized big, and he’s done yeoman’s work in the role having averaged nine points and six rebounds per game since mid-November. He plays 25 minutes a night of steady defense and has some perimeter switchability. He hits 35 percent of his four 3-point attempts per game. This is another guy whom I had rated as a first-rounder entering last year’s draft, and I thought he’d have some success early on in his career due to his basketball IQ and overall intelligence levels. As long as the shooting and defense in space hold up, Robinson-Earl will play in the NBA for a decade as a tough, role-playing four.
- Jalen Suggs falls a bit just by nature of games missed. He’s only played in 21 of the Magic’s possible 37 games and is still under 600 minutes played. He’s apparently progressing slowly from his thumb fracture, according to coach Jamahl Mosley, so, it doesn’t sound like we’re going to see him particularly soon in Orlando.
- This will probably look dumb in two weeks, but I popped Thunder wing Aaron Wiggins into the list at No. 15 following his last two weeks’ worth of games. I wanted a representative from this weird month-long replacement era of games, and Wiggins seems like the best guy. He’s been outstanding, averaging 15 points and five rebounds in six starts, playing efficiently as a driver and hitting the shots that come to him as a shooter. Guys like Josh Christopher, Brandon Boston Jr. and Jonathan Kuminga have also shown some fun signs, each popping off for over 20 points at least once over the last month. Wizards wing Corey Kispert has gotten his feet under him after a tough start, averaging nine points per game on efficient shooting over his last 10 games. Kessler Edwards also had a good five-game run for the Nets recently too. The guy who came in at No. 16, though, was Bones Hyland from the Nuggets, who has generally stepped into a big-time backcourt role that the Nuggets has needed off the bench for them to stay afloat.
Related reading
Russo: Evan Mobley more aggressive on offense since return
Hollinger: Scouting Davion Mitchell and more
Harper: Bulls jump to contenders tier in latest Power Rankings
(Top photo of Ayo Dosunmu: Kamil Krzaczynski / USA Today)
