About 16 games in for this season and this draft class has looked really mediocre so far. Can’t remember the last time there was no rookie from a draft class who came out the gate swinging. Last year we had paolo, mathurin, and Keegan with fantastic starts to the season. There’s been some solid role players but most of the guys who were hyped up to have star potential have been underwhelming so far.
Wembanyama has looked mediocre, below his generational expectations. He’s in a horrible offensive situation but he’s not doing himself any favors either with his horrible shooting and general inefficiency. His defense looks good so far at least. I’m still high on his potential but so far he’s been mediocre considering his expectations.
Ausar has looked good in filling the stat sheet with rebounds, steals, blocks, but for supposedly being the twin who can shoot he’s shooting a god awful 14% from 3 with his form looking as bad as ever. If he never learns how to shoot there’s likely no potential for him to be a star or long term starter.
The other guys at the top of the ROTY race include Jordan Hawkins who’s been fantastic as a role player, earning minutes at the starting and closing lineup and able to shoot high volume 3s fairly efficiently. Derrick lively has looked solid as a role playing run running defensive big in the league.
Brandon Miller has surpassed expectations imo, has shot decently well in decent efficiency in his role, definitely making hornets fans feel like they made the right decision so far to draft him over scoot.
Scoot has missed half the games but generally looked horrible in the games he did play shooting 32% from the field, 9% from 3. Also averaging 5 assists to 3.8 turnovers. He is definitely not the freak athlete that some fans thought he was.
Amen also only played 4 games and hasn’t shown anything of note, still having that horrendous shooting form and horrible percentages.
No one else is rly popping off or having a Hot start to the season like we usually see. Who do you guys think will start getting hot as the seasons goes on?
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It’s way too early to say lmao. I can’t rmr the last time a draft that had two rookies that could make an all defense team (Wemby and Ausar). Jaime and Lively have also looked pretty good so far. Brandon Miller’s shown nice flashes. Podziemski’s been a nice surprise for Golden state. What we’ve seen so far from these guys so far makes it hard to say this draft is gonna be bad tho.
Jezz I hate this posts, do this again in 6 years
I fully disagree with all your takes so I will leave it at that.
Pretty much every draft class looks mediocre the first year. Its because they are rookies adjusting to the nba. Wembanyama looks exactly how I though he would look. It was only the casuals hyping him up saying he would be an all star, dominate from day 1 and dumb shit like that. I actually think the rookie class has been better than I expected. You even have guys later down like Jaquez Jr, Podziemski and Sasser who have gotten minutes and played pretty well.
The last rookies to make an allstar team were Blake Griffin in 2011 then Yao in 03.
It was more common before that since guys cooked in college longer.
My big takeaway is that many teams are trying to compete this year vs last. Also, many players can’t shoot and it’s a shooters league now.
Do you realize that Paolo “coming out the gate swinging” was actually very similar to Wemby’s stats (even a little less efficient by efg%) not to mention the blocks and steals?
Wemby was a generational prospect, he gets higher expectations. But paolo’s first 16 games were better than Wemby’s imo. Maybe their efg% were similar but Paolo got to the line a ridiculous amount for a rookie.
Wemby is light years ahead of Paolo’s defense. Teams are game planning for when Wemby is on defense. Do you know how rare that is where guys like Fox, and Shai have to figure out clever points of attack. Also SA doesn’t have a floor commander and you can see how important that position is by watching SA
Not true, Paolo is a significantly worse defender than Wemby despite the statline
I didn’t like the hype from media this year. I saw what I saw with my own eyes and knew this was a decent class but like every year they need to hype it up so you watch the draft.
Wemby obviously shows insane flashes and we know he’s a future all-star.
Havent seen a lot of Scoot and as a Top 3 pick he’s crucial to the draft
I watched Miller have a killer game vs the Knicks. He gives off vibes of a guy who can do 20/0/0 game but I def see him as a future all-star
Both Thomason’s seem to play very very hard. So the Top 5 picks to me seem solid.
Other Rookies I like:
Hawkins is a sniper. I loved the UConn run this year but thought he was an early 2nd rounder not mid 1st. BUT UConn, skinny shooter, I wonder if Ray and Rip can mentor him a bit more, if the teams want to hire a shooting coach bc he has potential to be an ELITE shooter
Bilal Coulibaly: Wizards are going to be a bottom tier team and Bilal won’t have any real impact on the standings but he’s a guy to look out for.
Jaime Jaquez: Dude is LEGIT but limited in role. His team is solid and his play style is limited in pros due to advanced length and athleticism that wasn’t there in college. He is good, he fits the team, BUT I don’t know if his ceiling is much higher than 15/5/3
It’s been four weeks jesus christ lol
Paolo averaged 20 points on 53 TS last year
How different is that of Wemby whose at 19 on 52 TS with really good defense?
Y’all would have killed Kevin Durant his first year.
Yo, rookies usually suck, that’s the normal outcome. It’s a bummer guys like Scoot and Amen haven’t gotten to play like we hoped, but that’s also pretty normal.
Lively
They have only played a few weeks in the nba
By ops’s expectations, LeBron would have been disappointing 16 games in