2021-22 NBA Rookie Thread (part 5)

[bisme37]

Here's the continuation of the Rookie Thread...

Lots of terrific young guys to discuss so here's the place for all of your rookie discussion, hype, and well-reasoned criticism.

Thanks and enjoy!

(Continued from Part 4 here: viewtopic.php?f=6&t=2147301 )

[Duke4life831]

Biggest surprise: Herb Jones. Fantastic defensively and versatile defensively. He’s also been pretty dang solid on the offensive side of the ball as well. Not a guy that really created for himself, but hitting open shots and making smart cuts.

Best rookie: Mobley. Even with somewhat of a rookie wall being hit it seems. Still the most impressive rookie I’ve seen this year.

Most excited about: Kuminga. I’m biased with this one because I was the #1 Kuminga cheerleader on the draft board for the last 2 years. The dude’s potential is crazy. That combination of quickness/explosion/size is something to really watch. Rough patches with off ball defense, but already a pretty dang good on ball defender 1-4. Went from not really being in the rotation to start the year and bouncing back and forth between the G League, to now a legit guy in the rotation and looking good.

[bstein14]

Early season it looked like it was going to be Mobley running away, or perhaps a close Mobley/Barnes race. Right now the ROY award feels pretty wide open between 5 guys.

[HiRez]

Kuminga's going to need his own poll choice pretty soon. He's going to get a lot of minutes until Draymond comes back and it's looking like that could be a little while. Over the last 5 games he's averaging 16.8 points and 6.6 rebounds in 24.6 minutes. He's also averaging 5 FTA per game and shooting 67% there, which is not great, but an improvement from earlier in the season.

His Per 36 stats aren't that unfavorable compared to other top rookies, for example Evan Mobley:


or Scottie Barnes:

[dc]

Kuminga's a little late to the game to be involved in ROY conversation, but he can get involved in 2nd team all-rookie if he keeps it up. His inefficiency scoring the ball in G-League is what led people to say he was more raw than originally thought. But that was as a top scoring option. That's not nearly the same problem now that he's more of a 4th option, and now he looks more NBA ready than projected around the draft. Warriors doing an excellent job of making him play team ball and getting him to play to his strengths.

A little bit ironic because originally most people pointed at his teammate Moody as the more NBA ready guy, thinking that the Warriors "made up" for drafting the raw Kuminga by taking the more NBA ready Moody later in the lottery. Turns out turns out Kuminga is the more ready guy.

[HiRez]

Kuminga's a little late to the game to be involved in ROY conversation, but he can get involved in 2nd team all-rookie if he keeps it up. His inefficiency scoring the ball in G-League is what led people to say he was more raw than originally thought. But that was as a top scoring option. That's not nearly the same problem now that he's more of a 4th option, and now he looks more NBA ready than projected around the draft. Warriors doing an excellent job of making him play team ball and getting him to play to his strengths.

A little bit ironic because originally most people pointed at his teammate Moody as the more NBA ready guy, thinking that the Warriors "made up" for drafting the raw Kuminga by taking the more NBA ready Moody later in the lottery. Turns out turns out Kuminga is the more ready guy.

Agree with all that, but the poll question is "Which three rookies impress you the most?" (which might not be quite the same thing as ROY) so I think in that context he might warrant his own choice in time.

Warriors are for sure missing the playmaking and high-IQ tenacious defense of Draymond, however having Kuminga in the lineup gives them a legit scoring option (albeit erratic for now) from that slot, and Kuminga scores in a different way than anyone else on the team with his unique skill set. And Kuminga's actually better on defense right now than offense, even though his offense seems to be catching up quickly.

[orlando_joe]

Kuminga's going to need his own poll choice pretty soon. He's going to get a lot of minutes until Draymond comes back and it's looking like that could be a little while. Over the last 5 games he's averaging 16.8 points and 6.6 rebounds in 24.6 minutes. He's also averaging 5 FTA per game and shooting 67% there, which is not great, but an improvement from earlier in the season.

His Per 36 stats aren't that unfavorable compared to other top rookies, for example Evan Mobley:


or Scottie Barnes:

per 36 is nothing..if you cant or dont play the min or games you dont get the stats period

[HiRez]

Kuminga's going to need his own poll choice pretty soon. He's going to get a lot of minutes until Draymond comes back and it's looking like that could be a little while. Over the last 5 games he's averaging 16.8 points and 6.6 rebounds in 24.6 minutes. He's also averaging 5 FTA per game and shooting 67% there, which is not great, but an improvement from earlier in the season.

His Per 36 stats aren't that unfavorable compared to other top rookies, for example Evan Mobley:


or Scottie Barnes:

per 36 is nothing..if you cant or dont play the min or games you dont get the stats period

Of course it means something, it's the only way you have to fairly compare 2 players. Now if it's a super small sample size like 5 minutes vs. 30 minutes, sure, it's less useful. But in his last 5 games where Kuminga is getting more playing time (~25 m.), his stats per-36 have actually increased. That's a good sign that his numbers aren't inflated because of too few minutes played. In those 5 games, his per-36 is 24.6 points and 9.7 rebounds per game. Playing more minutes is actually increasing his production faster than the added minutes account for.

Again, I'm not arguing for Kuminga for ROY, or saying he's better than Mobley or Barnes. Just that his trajectory looks really good for when his minutes increase to those levels.

[orlando_joe]

Kuminga's going to need his own poll choice pretty soon. He's going to get a lot of minutes until Draymond comes back and it's looking like that could be a little while. Over the last 5 games he's averaging 16.8 points and 6.6 rebounds in 24.6 minutes. He's also averaging 5 FTA per game and shooting 67% there, which is not great, but an improvement from earlier in the season.

His Per 36 stats aren't that unfavorable compared to other top rookies, for example Evan Mobley:


or Scottie Barnes:

per 36 is nothing..if you cant or dont play the min or games you dont get the stats period

Of course it means something, it's the only way you have to fairly compare 2 players. Now if it's a super small sample size like 5 minutes vs. 30 minutes, sure, it's less useful. But in his last 5 games where Kuminga is getting more playing time (~25 m.), his stats per-36 have actually increased. That's a good sign that his numbers aren't inflated because of too few minutes played. In those 5 games, his per-36 is 24.6 points and 9.7 rebounds per game. Playing more minutes is actually increasing his production faster than the added minutes account for.

Again, I'm not arguing for Kuminga for ROY, or saying he's better than Mobley or Barnes. Just that his trajectory looks really good for when his minutes increase to those levels.

fresh legs..less min can go harder ...his min on season ...gives him fresh legs against guys that have played big min

[srhcan]

Kuminga's going to need his own poll choice pretty soon. He's going to get a lot of minutes until Draymond comes back and it's looking like that could be a little while. Over the last 5 games he's averaging 16.8 points and 6.6 rebounds in 24.6 minutes. He's also averaging 5 FTA per game and shooting 67% there, which is not great, but an improvement from earlier in the season.

His Per 36 stats aren't that unfavorable compared to other top rookies, for example Evan Mobley:


or Scottie Barnes:

per 36 is nothing..if you cant or dont play the min or games you dont get the stats period

Of course it means something, it's the only way you have to fairly compare 2 players. Now if it's a super small sample size like 5 minutes vs. 30 minutes, sure, it's less useful. But in his last 5 games where Kuminga is getting more playing time (~25 m.), his stats per-36 have actually increased. That's a good sign that his numbers aren't inflated because of too few minutes played. In those 5 games, his per-36 is 24.6 points and 9.7 rebounds per game. Playing more minutes is actually increasing his production faster than the added minutes account for.

Again, I'm not arguing for Kuminga for ROY, or saying he's better than Mobley or Barnes. Just that his trajectory looks really good for when his minutes increase to those levels.

Why not use the lower minutes average if you really want to compare this way? So if player A is averaging 15 min and player B is averaging 25 min then compare player A's 15 min with player B's 15 min.

[HiRez]

per 36 is nothing..if you cant or dont play the min or games you dont get the stats period

Of course it means something, it's the only way you have to fairly compare 2 players. Now if it's a super small sample size like 5 minutes vs. 30 minutes, sure, it's less useful. But in his last 5 games where Kuminga is getting more playing time (~25 m.), his stats per-36 have actually increased. That's a good sign that his numbers aren't inflated because of too few minutes played. In those 5 games, his per-36 is 24.6 points and 9.7 rebounds per game. Playing more minutes is actually increasing his production faster than the added minutes account for.

Again, I'm not arguing for Kuminga for ROY, or saying he's better than Mobley or Barnes. Just that his trajectory looks really good for when his minutes increase to those levels.

Why not use the lower minutes average if you really want to compare this way? So if player A is averaging 15 min and player B is averaging 25 min then compare player A's 15 min with player B's 15 min.

Sure, you can do that but it won't change the ratios, either way you're normalizing for a given amount of minutes. 36 is arbitrary but any number works.

[PD28]

Kuminga's going to need his own poll choice pretty soon. He's going to get a lot of minutes until Draymond comes back and it's looking like that could be a little while. Over the last 5 games he's averaging 16.8 points and 6.6 rebounds in 24.6 minutes. He's also averaging 5 FTA per game and shooting 67% there, which is not great, but an improvement from earlier in the season.

His Per 36 stats aren't that unfavorable compared to other top rookies, for example Evan Mobley:


or Scottie Barnes:

per 36 is nothing..if you cant or dont play the min or games you dont get the stats period

Of course it means something, it's the only way you have to fairly compare 2 players. Now if it's a super small sample size like 5 minutes vs. 30 minutes, sure, it's less useful. But in his last 5 games where Kuminga is getting more playing time (~25 m.), his stats per-36 have actually increased. That's a good sign that his numbers aren't inflated because of too few minutes played. In those 5 games, his per-36 is 24.6 points and 9.7 rebounds per game. Playing more minutes is actually increasing his production faster than the added minutes account for.

Again, I'm not arguing for Kuminga for ROY, or saying he's better than Mobley or Barnes. Just that his trajectory looks really good for when his minutes increase to those levels.

If I was a good coach, I'd play him more if he's playing well and play him less when he's bad...another way to explain the phenomenon you are describing.

[Roger Murdock]

Ayo is a good player.

[jordanwilliams6]

Ayo does it again. 18/8/2/2 on 7-8 shooting. Efficiency is remarkable.

[NRSV]

Evan Mobley is a top 10 defender in the NBA already.

[Bulls2021]

Read on Twitter

While guarding Tatum, Ja and Garland. He's been a machine.

[panthermark]

Mobley, Barnes, Franz are the big dogs. But a shout out to my man Ayo.... 2nd round pick playing like a lottery pick.
Including tonight's game, he is now 33 out of 70 from deep (47.1%).

[DroseReturnChi]

is dosunmu a top 5 rookie? cant believe 30 teams fking passed on him and still get disrespected with 2 yr contract.
i wonder who will offer him the max in 2024.

[DroseReturnChi]

Most excited about: Kuminga. I’m biased with this one because I was the #1 Kuminga cheerleader on the draft board for the last 2 years. The dude’s potential is crazy. That combination of quickness/explosion/size is something to really watch. Rough patches with off ball defense, but already a pretty dang good on ball defender 1-4. Went from not really being in the rotation to start the year and bouncing back and forth between the G League, to now a legit guy in the rotation and looking good.

dont know whats really excited abt kuminga. guys like scottie barnes do similar stuff and theres a billion prospect like those every single yr being 6'9 with two way potential is no longer a special thing if you cant shoot.
i was super excited beginning of ignite games because he has giannis lite finishing ability but thats about it. if he cant develop midrange, 3pt hes doomed. his ceiling is pascal siakam and the warriors could easily flip him now and win a ring.

[Duke4life831]

Most excited about: Kuminga. I’m biased with this one because I was the #1 Kuminga cheerleader on the draft board for the last 2 years. The dude’s potential is crazy. That combination of quickness/explosion/size is something to really watch. Rough patches with off ball defense, but already a pretty dang good on ball defender 1-4. Went from not really being in the rotation to start the year and bouncing back and forth between the G League, to now a legit guy in the rotation and looking good.

dont know whats really excited abt kuminga. guys like scottie barnes do similar stuff and theres a billion prospect like those every single yr being 6'9 with two way potential is no longer a special thing if you cant shoot.
i was super excited beginning of ignite games because he has giannis lite finishing ability but thats about it. if he cant develop midrange, 3pt hes doomed.

I mean just no. Kuminga is a freak athlete, there arent many guys with his combination of quickness/explosiveness/size in this league. Ya he isnt a knock down shooter at the moment, if he was he would've gone #1 in the draft. Over the last 20 gams he is shooting 38% from 3 on 2 attempts per game and has a 59 TS%. That to go with his man defense and again the combination of his quickness/explosion/size is clearly something to be excited about.