We got to talk about this rookie class as No. 1 overall pick Zakchari Risacher faces No. 2 overall pick Alex Sarr on Wednesday night. Summary: not good. If you think this is the worst class in recent NBA history, here’s a group of experts who agree with you:
NBA coaches.
At this rate, we could be witnessing the worst NBA entry class in league history. Rookies have been glued to the bench in ways we haven’t seen before. Even if the wins play, the team doesn’t rely on them for any real responsibility.
You know about the 15 freshman year where freshmen inevitably put on 15 pounds from the fun and pizza.
Let me introduce you to the rest of the Freshman 15. No rookie has scored 15 points in a game this season. Nada.
Fifteen points isn’t high, especially in today’s scorer-friendly environment where no one bats an eye at a team that scores 140 points. Still, no freshman has topped that 15-point mark — not Risacher, Sarr or anyone else drafted in the lottery. According to Stathead.com, we’ve never gone this “deep” into a season with a rookie coming off a measly 15 points in an NBA game.
Last year, two rookies scored 15-plus points in their first game, San Antonio’s Victor Wembanyama (15 points) and Dallas center Dereck Lively II (16 points). In the second game of the season, two more names were added to the list – Charlotte’s Brandon Miller (17 points) and Chet Holmgren (16 points). Third game of the season, another name: Gradey Dick, who scored 16 points for the Toronto Raptors. In each team’s first three games, rookies surpassed the 15-point plateau just eight times last year (Holmgren, Miller and Wembanyama did so multiple times).
But this season the same number is zilch.
Since 1970, we’ve typically seen about nine such appearances at this point in the season, sometimes as many as 17. The 2014-15 season represents the previous low of only one 15+ goal game in the opening week, and it was accomplished. Orlando’s Elfrid Payton had a no-hitter. This season? We’re still looking for our Elfrid Payton.
Coaches in the NBA simply cannot do anything.
The consensus preseason Rookie of the Year pickReed Sheppard drives the candle for Ime Udoka’s Houston Rockets. The Kentucky product played 15 minutes on opening night, but his playing time has dwindled in each game since, dropping to just three minutes in Monday’s win over the Spurs. The sharpshooter has shot just 4-of-12 in 38 minutes so far.
Zach Edey, another popular pick for Rookie of the Year (including yours truly), started every game for the Memphis Grizzlies. Here’s the good news. Bad news can be found everywhere. The 7-foot-4 center made more foul shots (15) than field goals (14). He recorded one more block than 5-foot-8 teammate Yuki Kawamura, and Kawamura has zero. With all the foul trouble and general ineffectiveness, Edey averaged just 16 minutes per game, the lowest of any full-time starter in the league.
Atlanta’s top overall pick, Risacher, showed flashes of promise, but the 19-year-old came off the bench in the team’s first two games — a rarity in the history of No. 1 overall picks — and shot 38.3 percent from the field. Real-shot percentage in his first foray into pro American hoops.
Charlotte, the seventh overall pick, Tidjane Salaun also did not start their first two games; in fact, he wasn’t playing at all. The French rookie, a DNP-Coach’s Decision for the team’s first two games, apparently hasn’t earned the trust of first-year head coach Charles Lee. And not at all does the Charlotte Hornets roster remind anyone of the 1996 Chicago Bulls.
By the way, has anyone heard from Rob Dillingham? The eighth overall pick in Minnesota has yet to play. In retrospect, John Calipari seems charitable after bringing Dillingham off the bench at Kentucky last season. Chris Finch hasn’t had his number called once, and the same goes for the team’s other first-round pick, Terrence Shannon Jr.
The Tanktastic Wizards were the boldest team in the rookie department. Coach Brian Keefe started the team’s two announced lottery picks in Sarr and Bub Carrington in the season opener against Boston. But even Keefe could not stomach this situation for long. After two blowout losses, Jonas Valančiūnas replaced Carrington in the starting lineup to give Sarr some muscle. After three games, Carrington scored three, 10 and 13 points.
And here’s the crazy thing: Carrington is your teenage scoring leader! The Pittsburgh product has averaged 8.7 points per game so far this season, making him the top scorer in the rookie class. yes, odd numbers. To answer the question raised by the Voice of the Gods NBA Beautiful Estesmy research shows that there has never been a rookie class without at least one player scoring in double figures.
It’s not just about points per game. Sarr and Carrington are No. 1 and No. 2 in minutes per game among rookies, and they haven’t even played 30 minutes in a game this season. In case you’re wondering, there’s also a fake NBA record in that category. We’ve never seen a season where a rookie hasn’t logged more than 30 minutes in at least one game during the teams’ three-game opener, according to Stathead.com tracking. By comparison, there were 19 such cases in 2021-22 – Cade Cunningham’s class.
Utah junior Cody Williams clocked 29 minutes and 58 seconds in his team’s fourth game on Tuesday night, making him the first bench player to touch the 30-minute plateau. While several teams have yet to play their fourth game, it would also be unprecedented to have a single 30-minute game from a rookie class at this point. According to Stathead.com, we haven’t had fewer than five games since the rookie class in 1964-65.
So what’s driving the great Teen Recession of 2024? Many NBA draftniks urged patience with this draft group, which lacks homegrown talent like Wemby, Zion or LeBron. They are also young. More 18-year-olds (Salaun, Carrington, and Nikola Topic) participated in the lottery than 18-year-olds who could legally buy Bud Light in the United States (Edey and Devin Carter, two).
Speaking of Carter and Topić, it certainly doesn’t help that those two lottery picks are out with injuries. Three other first-rounders, Toronto’s Ja’Kobe Walter (No. 19), Denver’s DaRon Holmes (No. 22) and Utah’s Isaiah Collier (No. 29) are also coming off physical ailments. But injuries happen every season, and rookies are not immune to such setbacks.
The most obvious explanation is that this group isn’t very good. This happens. Perhaps the closest composition is the 2000-01 class since Kenyon Martin was selected No. 1 overall by the New Jersey Nets. The Cincinnati phenom led the rookie class with a paltry 12.0 points per game, but that can be attributed in part to his recovery from a foot injury suffered last season as a Bearcat. (Mark Jackson — not Mark — actually averaged 13.2 points in 48 games for the Golden State Warriors, if you want to count that, but there’s an important caveat to his rookie status: He was 26.)
My examination of draft date data suggests so 2000 draft class It ranks as one of the worst draft classes in NBA history, with only three All-Stars in the group and none making more than one All-Star appearance. Five of the top seven picks were out of the league by the end of the decade. There were slow starts in this class as well, which proved to be more than just an aberration.
There is a glimmer of hope for this 2024 squad. Remember Elfrid Payton and the breakout rookie class of 2014-15? At the time, we didn’t know there were two draftees who didn’t play full time in 2014 season – forget the first few games – he will go on to become MVP later. Those players? Joel Embiid and Nikola Jokic. Embiid sat out two seasons with injury problems, and Jokić was sidelined for a season before Denver’s second-round pick made his stateside debut in October 2015. For that matter, you can count Julius Randle in the group of redshirt stars from 2014. class. The seventh overall pick broke his leg in his first NBA game, ending his rookie season prematurely, and as we now know, would go on to make three All-Star teams.
Maybe the class of 2024 will be like 2014. Looking deeper into the data, rookie production has no correlation to career first-week performance. Sometimes it shows incompetence, sometimes it doesn’t. After all, 18-year-old Giannis Antetokounmpo also received some DNP-CDs in his Hall of Fame debut. Rookies almost never break out of the gate as good NBA players, providing a tonic for some heartbreaking moments from Risacher and Sarr, who both won’t be 20 until April.
Perhaps Risacher, Sarr, Sheppard and the rest of the rookie class will make it happen soon, and this bumpy start will feel like a distant memory. But to average double-digit points, coaches must at least let kids eat. It still doesn’t happen very often. At the very least, let’s hope the rookies party in the coming days and deliver a freshman 15 for all of us. Maybe Risacher and Sarr do it on Wednesday.