Has a rookie other than Magic ever played a major role on a championship team.

[HeartBreakKid]

Sadly he did lose with homecourt in 1958, when he missed a game for injury and then was hampered in the close-out game.

Injured, not in full shape, before his prime, doesnt count, etc, etc

If Bill Russell was a real winner he would have lifted American segregation earlier and convince Warner Brothers to put him in a Looney Tunes movie.

He might have surpassed the real GOAT then.

[Owly]

Sadly he did lose with homecourt in 1958, when he missed a game for injury and then was hampered in the close-out game.

Otoh so could be wrong but iirc ...
He missed 2 games.
Played g1-2
Injured during 3.
Misses 4-5.
Returns (hurt) in 6.

[AEnigma]

Good correction, he missed a loss with injury. But the Celtics did go 1-1 without him so maybe he was carried by Bob Cousy after all.

[Owly]

1) Yeah slashlines aren't the way to go with box production.
Just the Refrence aggregates
21.5 PER, .185 WS/48, 3.9 BPM.
as a 20 year old (who hadn't played in the US before). It's quality impact and quality production. It's clearly "starter quality".
Edit: Based on some of the phrasing (despite the reference to box-production and quality) maybe it's just about playing him? If a cardio reference ... I don't know given the gulf between him and others in Denver I'd be surprised if he fell so far as to be near those minute sponge's standards ... or just a team's inherent conservatism which we can#'t know in this situation.

I wasn't saying Jokic himself isn't starter quality, I think he pretty clearly was even his rookie year. I said he probably wouldn't get starter quality minutes, so like 33+ mpg, based more on perception factors than actual goodness. I don't know if coaches and front offices are giving a lot of weight to aggregates like WS/48 and BPM to determine who should start. I mentioned slashlines because that's definitely one of the first things they look at. Those numbers also don't tell you anything about his defense. Combine the stereotypes about a "soft", slow, big European and the fact that he actually wasn't good just yet, plus the huge lack of experience, I don't think many playoff coaches start him.

3) No it wouldn't. You don't have to have projected Jokic to be the Jokic he's transpired to be to think he was worth buying or trading into the second round for. You just need to think he's better than the pick expectation/market value at that point and - if going the buying route, and as the trade at 35 illustrates a future second could do it - an owner willing to spend a relatively trivial sum relative to typical NBA expenditure. Am pretty sure some projections really liked him too (Pelton's for one iirc).

I agree that he would need to beat his pick projection, my point is the Warriors clearly didn't have that in mind at all. They needed to expect him to be a bench role player, not even a starter, to justify picking him pretty much. Picks that late are essentially crapshoots, so they would need a good amount of foresight. They had at least 11 second round picks they could have offered for, and while we don't know their inner decisions, I haven't seen anything to indicate they liked specifically him so much.

As above what playing time teams would give is (a) not the primary concern here, (b) subject to circumstance and (c) not really knowable.
Fwiw, I'd be surprised if many coaches in the league now look at slashlines for player evaluation. Moreso if there are many present gen front office guys who aren't ex-pros on their way out. But to be clear I don't claim to be in the know there.

Re: "my point is the Warriors clearly didn't have that in mind at all"
1) As above re "that's definitely one of the first things they look at" you seem very confident on the state of others minds. I don't know whether that's justified or not.
2) If that was the point it perhaps wasn't articulated clearly. As above I read

that would require some insane foresight by the Warriors

as inaccurate for the reasons stated. That line and resultant debate isn't about what the Warriors were thinking. It was about what you need to see to make any move for a pick in that range.
There hasn't been a claim that the Warriors were interested, so I'm not sure where you're going with this. If you're looping back to the general landing on the champs is unlikely because there's only one champ, I've already covered this in general discussion in this thread.