NBA Rookie Discussion Thread 2023-24

[cupcakesnake]

Anyone who thought Chet was better at any point in the season should have their votes taken away

Nah. Chet was better over the first third of the season. Then Wemby put it together and reached a whole other level.

First 20 games, Weby was shooting 43%fg, 27% from 3, and turning the ball over a ton. Chet was playing his role perfectly on a very good team while Wemby was thrown into a bigger fire and took a minute to fireproof himself.

Since then? Wemby figured it out and has been stretching our imaginations in terms of what we thought was possible on a basketball court. He figured it out 20 games into his career and now we just get to see how far he can take this.

Wemby started this season as a power forward with Sochan as a point guard in his first 20 games, that's why we got this slow start, he was misused on both ends of the floor.

And that's why these convos about Holmgren vs Wemby had started, because Chet was surprisingly good and Wemby looked like a typical inefficient rookie on a bad team (who he's not).

I don't think there's been ever a serious discussion about who's a better prospect (with Wemby being visibly younger), so it's a weird revisionism to laugh at Chet vs Wemby ROTY discussions (as Holmgren in his first 20 games was 17-8-3-2 on 63 TS% vs Wemby's 19-10-3-3 on 52 TS%) or suggest people thought that Chet is a better prospect (maybe some OKCs most loyal fans and Chet's family). Since then, yeah, Wemby is 22-11-4-4 on 58 TS% in 29 minutes and everyone has an understanding what does such production in the age of 20 means short/long-term.

As a starting center, Wemby is at 3.8 BPG in 29 minutes, will be interesting to follow if he can get to the 5 bpg territory once his minutes increase. This is surreal to even make such claim in 2024 with number of blocks decreased, game being played on perimeter etc.

I have no pushback on the why of Wemby's early struggles. I understood them then and now, and never had any concerns about his quality as a prospect. He was always a better prospect that Chet for early reasons.

But like you're suggesting ROY isn't best prospect, it's best rookie season. At the time, Chet was having a better season than Wemby.

Best prospect vs. best rookie season sometimes creates some tension amongst fans/media. A lot of fans want it to go to guy who they think is going to be the best (as long as the player gave some proof of concept in their rookie season). There were tinges of that last year in Paolo vs. J-Dub/Kessler, but it goes back in my recollection to things like Lebron vs. Melo, Okafor vs. Dwight, Amar'e vs. Yao, Brogdon vs. Embiid, Zion vs. Ja etc.

[Yuri Vaultin]

Ben Sheppard will have a long NBA career.

[mcmurphy]

By now I think the ROTY discussion is closed (absolutely not due to Chet's demerit).

Maybe we should ask ourselves if Wemba isn't already at All-Nba 3rd team level.
It might seem like blasphemy but maybe it's not such a crazy idea.

This is the running average (15 games) of GameScore (productivity score in terms of efficiency and box score data) through the season, absolute and per min.
I have considered 3 players in the top10 for the MVP award (based on basketball-reference.com), Jokic (1st), Brunson (9th) and Haliburton (10th) and Wemby and Chet.
Jokic is in a category of its own (alway between 25-30), Haliburton started the season near Jokic and then there was a dizzying fall (from over 25 to 15), Brunson stable over 20 after the first 20 games, Wemby starting around 15 now is around 20 and Chet ha been stable around 15.

... and in the GameScore per min Wemby is clearly above Brunson and Haliburton.

and whoever objects... "eh, but his game is not reflected in wins"... first of all he can only control what happens when he is on the court and since January 4th (when he was moved from C) he has a NetRtg=+1.9 (a borderline playoff team, similar to SAC or Indiana)

[NoDopeOnSundays]

If this guy isn’t unanimous RoTY someone needs their vote taken away

Anyone who thought Chet was better at any point in the season should have their votes taken away

Nah. Chet was better over the first third of the season. Then Wemby put it together and reached a whole other level.

First 20 games, Weby was shooting 43%fg, 27% from 3, and turning the ball over a ton. Chet was playing his role perfectly on a very good team while Wemby was thrown into a bigger fire and took a minute to fireproof himself.

Since then? Wemby figured it out and has been stretching our imaginations in terms of what we thought was possible on a basketball court. He figured it out 20 games into his career and now we just get to see how far he can take this.

The Spurs were playing him out of position at the 4, and also straddled him with Sochan at the 1. Anytime he played the 5 he played better, and the early numbers with him and Jones were good. So it wasn't so much as him figuring things out as it was the Spurs coming to their senses and playing Jones at PG and Vic at C.

I think had they played him at C from the start his overall season numbers would be even more impressive and the Chet talk being better never would have gotten off the ground, but I guess the adversity of playing with Sochan PG and Collins C may have helped him in some ways.

[cupcakesnake]

Anyone who thought Chet was better at any point in the season should have their votes taken away

Nah. Chet was better over the first third of the season. Then Wemby put it together and reached a whole other level.

First 20 games, Weby was shooting 43%fg, 27% from 3, and turning the ball over a ton. Chet was playing his role perfectly on a very good team while Wemby was thrown into a bigger fire and took a minute to fireproof himself.

Since then? Wemby figured it out and has been stretching our imaginations in terms of what we thought was possible on a basketball court. He figured it out 20 games into his career and now we just get to see how far he can take this.

The Spurs were playing him out of position at the 4, and also straddled him with Sochan at the 1. Anytime he played the 5 he played better, and the early numbers with him and Jones were good. So it wasn't so much as him figuring things out as it was the Spurs coming to their senses and playing Jones at PG and Vic at C.

I think had they played him at C from the start his overall season numbers would be even more impressive and the Chet talk being better never would have gotten off the ground, but I guess the adversity of playing with Sochan PG and Collins C may have helped him in some ways.

I don't disagree with any of that.
It's also not really surprising that a second year rookie on a really good team had an easier transition than an actual rookie moving to a new country and playing on an awful team.

Regardless of the reasons though, Chet was having a better season for about 20 games. After that, Wemby showed us there's no real comparison. Which is crazy because Chet is ridiculously good. I think there's an argument they're both already top 5 bigs in the league. Wemby is basically mega Chet though.

[WestGOAT]

.

Cool graphs! Gamescore has its purposes, but I think a composite box-score + impact stat like EPM, and to be exact EW (estimated wins added, which is to EPM what VORP is to BPM) would do a better job telling who the more valuable player is: https://dunksandthrees.com/epm Not sure how easily available you can get this stat per game, or other similar stats like LEBRON or RAPTOR though.

One more note, I think Wemby played 60 games to Chets 67 so these graphs wouldn't be representative if you would for example do area under the curve calculations if you want to estimate total value.

This is what I found for DPM (https://apanalytics.shinyapps.io/DARKO/):

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[MoneyTalks41890]

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He's actually averaging 5.8 on the season though, not sure a 10 game sample here is worth highlighting.

[Jamaaliver]

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[MoneyTalks41890]

Wow this sucks/is scary. Hope all is good long term.

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[ThatBoyNick]

He's actually averaging 5.8 on the season though, not sure a 10 game sample here is worth highlighting.

The highlight should just be the rate instead, he's 4th amongst rookies in rebounding rate, behind Wemby, Jackson-Davis, and Lively

Other notables for Amen, 1st in steals, 4th in FG%, 8th in blocks and assists (all per 100 pos/20 game min)

[NotaHypeJob]

GG Jackson goes top 5 in a 2023 redraft right?
He's looking like a Danny Granger/Michael Porter Jr kinda guy and he's barely turned 19.

[shi-woo]

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He's actually averaging 5.8 on the season though, not sure a 10 game sample here is worth highlighting.

But he's been doing it for months now. Since the Rockets figured out their lineups and he started getting 20+ minutes consistently he's looked every part of the #4 selection, and both him and his brother have really looked solid.

The Ringer did a great breakdown on him and the Rockets the other day, and how good Amen has looked playing the Center spot on offense since Sengun went down. They compared it to when the Rockets had Westbrook and essentially doubled down on small ball to maximize Russ' skillset. The Rockets have done the same thing this year, and Amen has looked crazy good in the backcourt next to Jabari.

Rockets have been awesome defensively all year, and Thompson's rebounding and crazy energy is part of the reason for such great turn arounds.

[MoneyTalks41890]

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He's actually averaging 5.8 on the season though, not sure a 10 game sample here is worth highlighting.

But he's been doing it for months now. Since the Rockets figured out their lineups and he started getting 20+ minutes consistently he's looked every part of the #4 selection, and both him and his brother have really looked solid.

The Ringer did a great breakdown on him and the Rockets the other day, and how good Amen has looked playing the Center spot on offense since Sengun went down. They compared it to when the Rockets had Westbrook and essentially doubled down on small ball to maximize Russ' skillset. The Rockets have done the same thing this year, and Amen has looked crazy good in the backcourt next to Jabari.

Rockets have been awesome defensively all year, and Thompson's rebounding and crazy energy is part of the reason for such great turn arounds.

To be clear I think Amen is an incredible prospect outside his shooting abilities just like his brother. I just think the dicing of the stats in the original tweet is a little much. But I guess I'm probably about to do something similar.

[MoneyTalks41890]

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[cupcakesnake]

He's actually averaging 5.8 on the season though, not sure a 10 game sample here is worth highlighting.

But he's been doing it for months now. Since the Rockets figured out their lineups and he started getting 20+ minutes consistently he's looked every part of the #4 selection, and both him and his brother have really looked solid.

The Ringer did a great breakdown on him and the Rockets the other day, and how good Amen has looked playing the Center spot on offense since Sengun went down. They compared it to when the Rockets had Westbrook and essentially doubled down on small ball to maximize Russ' skillset. The Rockets have done the same thing this year, and Amen has looked crazy good in the backcourt next to Jabari.

Rockets have been awesome defensively all year, and Thompson's rebounding and crazy energy is part of the reason for such great turn arounds.

To be clear I think Amen is an incredible prospect outside his shooting abilities just like his brother. I just think the dicing of the stats in the original tweet is a little much. But I guess I'm probably about to do something similar.

There are truly some stupid stats generated by statsmuse. No one should care about this weird statistical "dicing".

However, they could have done this smarter. Why not focus on Ausar's overall rebound rate. He's averaging 12.2 rebounds per 100. The only rookies rebounding at a better rate (Lively, Chet, and Victor) are all 7'1" or taller. Ausar is 6'5.75"

Ausar is averaging 6.4 rebounds on the season (not 5.8).

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[Dan Z]

GG Jackson goes top 5 in a 2023 redraft right?
He's looking like a Danny Granger/Michael Porter Jr kinda guy and he's barely turned 19.

You think he goes higher than the Thompson twins or Scoot?

He's having a good season, but I wouldn't take him top five. There are other rookies in that class that I'd rather have too, but it depends on my team.

https://www.basketball-reference.com/draft/NBA_2023.html

[NoDopeOnSundays]

GG Jackson goes top 5 in a 2023 redraft right?
He's looking like a Danny Granger/Michael Porter Jr kinda guy and he's barely turned 19.

You think he goes higher than the Thompson twins or Scoot?

He's having a good season, but I wouldn't take him top five. There are other rookies in that class that I'd rather have too, but it depends on my team.

https://www.basketball-reference.com/draft/NBA_2023.html

He would absolutely go before Scoot in a redraft, think he goes before Ausar as well. The skillset he has at the size he has is extremely valuable, more so when you realize he's only 19. He's been putting up numbers better than Miller since he got the start, and is already the 3rd leading scorer in the class despite basically not playing for the first 1/3 of the season.