>#####I’ve always really liked watching rookies. Not because I have a streak of Draper in me and I like only the beginnings of things, but because there’s something uniquely thrilling about witnessing the moments of discovery that happen in a player’s first season. So this season, in honor of one of the most intriguing draft classes in recent history, I … am going to rank them.
>#####Numbers will factor into these rankings, but the game film will matter more (I love numbers, but I’m a miserably insistent tape guy). Roles vary wildly for first-year players—a top pick may be able to play through wild experimentation, while a lower-selected or undrafted player might have less margin for error. So there’s a sliding scale at work here that tries to balance what a player can do with what a player is allowed to do.
>#####There will be “swing skills,” represented by badges, to symbolize the traits that could propel a player to a new level … or keep them from reaching their ceiling. Each player has also been sorted into a tier that predicts where they’ll land between ages 24 and 30. Those tiers are MVP (top three- to five-ish player in the league), All-NBA (top 15), All-Star (top 30), Starter (top 100), and Rotation (top 200). These projections are driven by observation, some stat-centric historical precedent, and—buckle up, pal!—my opinion.
>#####So, over the rest of the 2023-24 season, we’ll provide regular check-ins on the growth arcs of the players on the list. We will also add new rookies to the mix, as well as some video breakdowns, along the way. My hands are together in the praying motion, hoping all of that sounds good to you. If so, away we go.
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George checks in at #5, but the blurb sounds like it was written a while ago – he says Utah is “mired at the bottom of the west”
by Mdgt_Pope
