The 2019 Rookie Class

[closg00]

No disrespect to the Brandon Clarke shrine, but it was this guy who was the boards consensus pick , his deep stroke looks sweet

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Just for fun, merge where appropriate

[payitforward]

No disrespect to the Brandon Clarke shrine, but it was this guy who was the boards consensus pick , his deep stroke looks sweet

Well... it's the G League. But, you are right -- his 3 point shot is so quick & smooth! Plus the athleticism.... Nice! Why is he not with the Pistons, I wonder?

[Ruzious]

No disrespect to the Brandon Clarke shrine, but it was this guy who was the boards consensus pick , his deep stroke looks sweet

Well... it's the G League. But, you are right -- his 3 point shot is so quick & smooth! Plus the athleticism.... Nice! Why is he not with the Pistons, I wonder?

He missed the entire preseason with an injury, and he's still just 18.

[Illmatic12]

No disrespect to the Brandon Clarke shrine, but it was this guy who was the boards consensus pick , his deep stroke looks sweet

Well... it's the G League. But, you are right -- his 3 point shot is so quick & smooth! Plus the athleticism.... Nice! Why is he not with the Pistons, I wonder?

I watched the Go-Go game where Sekou scored 18pts , and he also got some garbage time minutes last night at the end of the Pistons blowout vs the Bucks. He’s extremely raw , still years away from being ready to play.


He is utterly lost defensively , far too poor to be playable atm. Also still doesn’t have NBA level physicality nor conditioning which shows in his lack of motor on the court - resting and taking plays off.


Sekou’s open court athleticism looks good and he runs the floor fluidly . Still seems to have issues catching the ball and finishing, so work on his strength is needed.

His most promising NBA skill is his ability to shoot off of movement at his size (which I pointed out before the draft). I’d compare his profile to someone like Taurean Prince - a prospect who was drafted as a big physical defender, turned out to not be that at all but his shooting ended up being better than anticipated.

[I_Like_Dirt]

Since grabbing Drummond in 2012...

2013 - The Pistons pick Kentavious Caldwell-Pope. Trey Burke and CJ McCollum are the next picks.
2014 - The Pistons trade their pick.
2015 - The Pistons pick Stanley Johnson. Frank Kaminsky and Justise Winslow are the next picks and somehow the Pistons still manage to get the worst player of the bunch.
2016 - The Pistons pick Henry Ellenson. Malik Beasley and Caris Levert are the next picks.
2017 - The Pistons pick Luke Kennard. Donovan Mitchell and Bam Adebayo are the next picks.
2018 - The Pistons trade their pick.

Sekou is doomed. Not his fault; it's just science. On the bright side, Chuma Okeke and Nickeil Alexander-Walker both just had their odds of having long and productive careers increased substantially without actually having to do anything.

Edit:

To go before Drummond:

2011 - Knight over Kemba
2010 - Monroe over Hayward
2009 - Austin Daye over Jrue Holiday

All this within two picks of their spot. Sekou is doomed.

[payitforward]

Since grabbing Drummond in 2012...

2013 - The Pistons pick Kentavious Caldwell-Pope. Trey Burke and CJ McCollum are the next picks.
2014 - The Pistons trade their pick.
2015 - The Pistons pick Stanley Johnson. Frank Kaminsky and Justise Winslow are the next picks and somehow the Pistons still manage to get the worst player of the bunch.
2016 - The Pistons pick Henry Ellenson. Malik Beasley and Caris Levert are the next picks.
2017 - The Pistons pick Luke Kennard. Donovan Mitchell and Bam Adebayo are the next picks.
2018 - The Pistons trade their pick.

Sekou is doomed. Not his fault; it's just science. On the bright side, Chuma Okeke and Nickeil Alexander-Walker both just had their odds of having long and productive careers increased substantially without actually having to do anything.

Edit:

To go before Drummond:

2011 - Knight over Kemba
2010 - Monroe over Hayward
2009 - Austin Daye over Jrue Holiday

All this within two picks of their spot. Sekou is doomed.

Well... they did pick Drummond -- so maybe he isn't doomed to be doomed -- just likely to be.

KC-P has been a pretty good player -- certainly better than Burke, & I'd say he is as good as the over-rated, volume-shooting CJ McCollum as well.

Still... the rest of that list is pretty pathetic. Not as bad as Ernie Grunfeld but pathetic all the same.

[I_Like_Dirt]

C'mon now. KCP is better than Burke, sure, but McCollum is better. It's not really close, either. Everything that McCollum struggles with, KCP tends to struggle with more. KCP probably takes a bit too much heat for his play at this point - he's been okay - but he's a marginal rotation player and McCollum is a legit starter.

Picking Drummond... I'll give them that but he tends to be a touch overstated in his value in general, though he's certainly good. Beyond Drummond, that draft record is honestly worse than Ernie's. Ernie had some colossal flops in general, don't get me wrong, but over his final years, I sort of got the impression that the scouts advising him had improved. It might just be entirely coincidence but I don't actually mind the relatively recent draft record. Sanon is obviously a stash but I don't think he's a bad prospect. Troy Brown seems solid to me. Oubre was perfectly fine where he was picked. Porter wasn't a superstar but was fine where he was picked in an awful draft. Beal and Sato were both excellent picks.

It was really just 2011 and 2009 that were utter catastrophes (and catastrophe is an understatement). For the most part, Grundfeld's biggest problem was that he was basically looking for reasons to include picks in trades so that he wouldn't have to make them. He clearly didn't believe in developing younger players and the results of his teams bore that out over time, sadly. The Pistons, though... they just seem to have a knack for finding ways to find extremely limited contributors in an areas of the draft where much better talents are taken. It's honestly pretty impressive. Part of that has to be their commitment to player development and it's tough to tell where one begins and the other ends. That's the part that concerns me with Doumbouya: a project taken by a team that has a rather terrible history of player development generally isn't a recipe for success. The Pistons even got a gem in the 2nd round once, drafting Khris Middleton 39th overall in 2012 and then couldn't unload him to the Bucks fast enough the very next offseason.

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I start this thread, because I've just taken a dive into rookie numbers so far, & what I find looks really strange to me.

Of the 15 lottery picks, 4 haven't played yet at all (Zion, Hayes, Langford & Doumboya). 6 guys picked before Rui have played, all of them regularly. Morant has been tremendous in many ways. If you put aside his very very bad turnover numbers, everything else about his play says "star" -- or at least "future star." The other 5, however (Barrett, Hunter, Garland, Culver & White) have been really bad. I mean really, really bad. Esp. the last 4 of them.

4 guys taken after Rui in the lottery have also played regularly -- Reddish, Johnson, Washington, & Herro. The last 2 have played quite well (they both surprised me -- I wasn't terribly high on either of them). Reddish has been godawful.

Overall, Cameron Johnson's numbers are strangely similar to Rui's (though Rui's been the better rebounder while Johnson has been an outstanding & prolific 3-point shooter).

What's strangest is that of the 11 lottery picks who've played, 6 have been so utterly terrible, while the 3 best have been Morant (leaving the 5.5 TOs/40 minutes out of consideration) & the #12 & 13 picks. I can't remember anything like that since 2011.

IOW, a lot of top-tier picks have sucked so far. & if one thing goes down, often another rises: many of the best rookies so far are guys who went undrafted (Terence Davis, Ky Bowman, Matt Thomas, & Kendrick Nunn are all in the top baker's dozen so far) or R2 picks (Cody Martin, Terence Mann). Not to mention Clarke, Bitadze & Bazley -- R1 picks well outside the lottery.

Strange stuff.

[Dat2U]

I really liked Morant, Bitadze, Clarke & Herro from the pre-draft process. So far so good. Rui has been a little better than I thought offensively but defensively he is as bad as I imagined he would be.

[Dat2U]

Culver looks like a bust to me watching him play a bit. One of those, does a little bit of everything but nothing well types. Didn't trust the combo of a slow first step and broken jumper coming out.

[DCZards]

Younger guys with less college experience like White and Garland are struggling while older, more experienced players like Nunn, Bowman, Clarke and Martin are excelling. No surprise there.

It will probably be 2-3 years before we’ll really have a read on this year’s rookies, especially the 19 and 20 year olds.

[payitforward]

For sure -- tho it's worth mentioning a few exceptions:

1. Ja Morant isn't struggling. Yes, he's turning it over too much. But in every other way he is showing why he was such a high pick. Man, he's good!
2. Darius Bazley, picked #23, is playing pretty well for a rookie. He won't turn 20 until next June!
3. Tyler Herro, also 19, is coming along very well too.
4. Goga Bitadze, 20, hasn't been bad either.

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A few other incidental rookie notes:

Boston has played 5 rookies this year! (Ok... Fall has only gotten 1 minute: but still!)

The Warriors have played rookies 1481 minutes -- way way ahead of any other team.

8 teams have played no rookies at all: Brooklyn, Dallas, Detroit, Houston, the Lakers, Milwaukee, Orlando & San Antonio.

Another 8 have played only 1 rookie: Denver, Indiana, New Orleans, the Knicks, OKC, Philly, Portland, & Sacramento.

Utah has played 3 rookies -- but for a combined total of 28 minutes.

[oldshoolballer]

My Top 10 so far

1 Morant 6 Clarke
2 Paschall 7 Hachimura
3 Nunn 8 Washington
4 Herro 9 White
5 Barrett 10 Hunter

Under performing Cam Reddish Jarrett Culver

Looking better Darius Garland Jaxson Hayes

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Missed this, sorry....

McCollum scores more points than KCP. But, he's not a particularly efficient scorer. Still... neither is KCP. On the rest of their numbers, KCP is overall a bit better.

But, really, my point is not that KCP is all that good; he isn't. Rather, it's that McCollum is way way over-rated -- as is typical of any player who scores a lot of points, no matter how efficiently or inefficiently he scores them.

It's sad to have to compare our drafting record w/ Detroit's also horrible record in the Grunfield era, but it doesn't look quite the way you seem to think. In 2010 we got Wall, they got Monroe. That doesn't mean we drafted better -- it means we had the #1 pick!

Ditto in 2012. You, I & pretty much every NBA fan on planet Earth would have picked Bradley Beal at #3. Anyone can pick in the top 3 & usually get a good player! But, right after Brad, GMs took Deon Waiters & Thomas Robinson! Harrison Barnes & Terrence Ross! Between Beal & Drummond, 5 GMs managed one good pick among them. Detroit gets more credit for good drafting b/c they took Drummond at #9 then, e.g., NO does for picking the obvious superstar-to-be Anthony Davis at #1. Duh.

Ditto, Satoransky. He was not an "excellent pick." There's a difference between a good player & a good choice of how to use a draft pick! We didn't see Sato for 3 long years. & got 4500 minutes of play in return for the pick. Meanwhile, Draymond Green became a force. Jae Crowder, Khris Middleton, Will Barton -- all better picks. Oh, and all of them were pointed out as targets on this board, so it's not like you couldn't see their potential.

Not praising Detroit, as I hope is obvious -- it's just that, bad as they were, Ernie was worse. Anyway... ancient history now. Thank heavens.

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My Top 10 so far

1 Morant
2 Paschall
3 Nunn
4 Herro
5 Barrett
6 Clarke
7 Hachimura
8 Washington
9 White
10 Hunter

Under performing Cam Reddish Jarrett Culver

Looking better Darius Garland Jaxson Hayes

(I edited the list to make it easier to follow -- hope that's ok...?)

Since Jaxson Hayes hasn't played a single minute yet, I'm feeling a certain lack of confidence in your analysis here! (...actually, I assume you meant someone else -- maybe Bazley?)

P.J. Washington has been substantially better than Rui.

Clarke has outperformed Barrett by even more.

Paschall started out really strong, & his scoring is still a positive -- more points than an average 4 & at a higher TS%. Definitely a strong start -- above all for a guy taken in R2. But the idea that Paschall has been as good as Herro? Or Washington? Or, above all, Clarke? How?

Nunn too has scored well -- & that's it. You can't ignore the fact that he does nothing else!

No one on your list has played anywhere near as well as Clarke. Obvious.

As to Morant, if he weren't turning the ball over so much, his numbers might warrant him being in the top couple of rookies. & for sure it is utterly obvious that he's going to wind up a star. But there is no way, objectively, that he's been the top rookie performer.

Garland "improving?" How? He's been absolutely awful. He did have a good game against the Bucks yesterday. Is that what you mean? The previous 2 games he turned the ball over 13 times in a total of 51 minutes.

Hunter's been as bad as Culver -- or maybe worse. Garland's been worse than both of them.

[DCZards]

My Top 10 so far

1 Morant
2 Paschall
3 Nunn
4 Herro
5 Barrett
6 Clarke
7 Hachimura
8 Washington
9 White
10 Hunter

Under performing Cam Reddish Jarrett Culver

Looking better Darius Garland Jaxson Hayes

(I edited the list to make it easier to follow -- hope that's ok...?)

Since Jaxson Hayes hasn't played a single minute yet, I'm feeling a certain lack of confidence in your analysis here! (...actually, I assume you meant someone else -- maybe Bazley?)

P.J. Washington has been substantially better than Rui.

Clarke has outperformed Barrett by even more.

Paschall started out really strong, & his scoring is still a positive -- more points than an average 4 & at a higher TS%. Definitely a strong start -- above all for a guy taken in R2. But the idea that Paschall has been as good as Herro? Or Washington? Or, above all, Clarke? How?

Nunn too has scored well -- & that's it. You can't ignore the fact that he does nothing else!

No one on your list has played anywhere near as well as Clarke. Obvious.

As to Morant, if he weren't turning the ball over so much, his numbers might warrant him being in the top couple of rookies. & for sure it is utterly obvious that he's going to wind up a star. But there is no way, objectively, that he's been the top rookie performer.

Garland "improving?" How? He's been absolutely awful. He did have a good game against the Bucks yesterday. Is that what you mean? The previous 2 games he turned the ball over 13 times in a total of 51 minutes.

Hunter's been as bad as Culver -- or maybe worse. Garland's been worse than both of them.

Jaxson Hayes has been playing a lot lately. He's averaged around 25 mins in the last 5 games and has played very well (mostly eye test).

Since oldschoolballer clearly labeled this "My Top 10," which is clearly a subjective standard, I think his rankings are perfectly fine. He's entitled to his opinion.

From what I've seen thus far (stats aside), I'd also rate Barrett highly. I have no doubt that Barrett will eventually become a better NBA player than some of the other rookies who are currently playing better than him. I really like RJ's skillset.

Oldschoolballer is mostly right about Garland playing better in recent games. Darius is 19 years old and only played 5 games in college before being injured. I wouldn't be surprised if he eventually lived up to his ranking as the fifth pick.

[youngWizzy]

Hayes has played.. I've seen the same comment more than once now. His foul rate is about as bad as expected coming out of college.

With Paschall, nothing besides his ts% nothing else about him really pops out. Obviously a rookie but I think people think way too highly of him.

[payitforward]

Uh oh -- I was wrong about Hayes not having played. Box Score Geek has some work to do on their back end! Sorry oldschoolballer! My bad.

[payitforward]

...Since oldschoolballer clearly labeled this "My Top 10," which is clearly a subjective standard, I think his rankings are perfectly fine. He's entitled to his opinion.

Absolutely! Not only that, when a person says "this or that player is in my top 10," he may mean no more than that he enjoys watching him, that's the kind of player he likes.

...From what I've seen thus far (stats aside), I'd also rate Barrett highly. I have no doubt that Barrett will eventually become a better NBA player than some of the other rookies who are currently playing better than him. I really like RJ's skillset.

He certainly may -- I don't know about "no doubt" but he is a very gifted kid.

My problem is that when I watch him I see the things that wind up being called "stats." I see the turnovers, I see him missing all those shots. Can't help it. So I can't put those things aside.

Fortunately, that means that as soon as I see those shots going in, I won't put that aside either. When I see him value the ball more, I'll say "Barrett is learning to value the ball more, cut down his turnover -- that's a good thing."

Oldschoolballer is mostly right about Garland playing better in recent games. Darius is 19 years old and only played 5 games in college before being injured. I wouldn't be surprised if he eventually lived up to his ranking as the fifth pick.

For sure! He may turn out great. & the less high-level organized ball you've played, the longer one would expect it to take for you to be functional in the NBA.

OTOH, Mitchell Robinson didn't play any games in college at all! Then he came into the NBA & killed it!

As I mentioned above, I just report what I see. Garland had a good game last night. Two nights before that he turned the ball over 8 times in 31 minutes.

Improvising music, you can fail to hit the note & still make something beautiful out of it. Miles was a master of that. But there's no score at the end of the set; no one wins or loses the set. In basketball, there's a score; at the end of the game you either win or you lose. If what you do contributes strongly to winning the game, you are playing well. If what you do makes it hard to win, contributes to losing, you're not playing well. Turn the ball over 8 times in 31 minutes & you are doing a manful job of making your team lose. Or, as Louis Armstrong might have said: "It's tight like that."

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(Since you like trumpet-playing, might as well listen to the very best...)