The NBA rookie class is off to the worst start in league history

Zaccharie Risacher, the No. 1 pick in the 2024 draft, and the rookie class have gotten off to a slow start. (Photo by Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images)

With No. 1 overall pick Zaccharie Risacher facing No. 2 overall pick Alex Sarr on Wednesday night, we need to talk about this rookie class. Recap: it hasn’t been good. If you thought this was the worst class in recent NBA history, there’s a group of experts who seem to agree with you:

NBA coaches.

The way it’s going, we might be witnessing the worst class to enter the NBA in league history. Rookies have been glued to the bench in ways that we haven’t seen. And even when the rooks do play, the team barely trusts them for any sort of real responsibility.

You know about the Freshman 15, when first-year college students inevitably put on 15 pounds from partying and pizza.

Let me introduce you to the other Freshman 15. Not one rookie has scored 15 points in a game this season. Nada.

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Fifteen points is not a high bar, especially in today’s scorer-friendly environment where no one blinks an eye at a team scoring 140 points. And yet, no freshman pro player has cleared that 15-point threshold — not Risacher, Sarr or anyone else drafted in the lottery. According to Stathead.com, we have never gone this “deep” into the season with a rookie failing to score a measly 15 points in an NBA game.

Last year, two rookies scored 15-plus in their very first game, San Antonio’s Victor Wembanyama (15 points) and Dallas center Dereck Lively II (16 points). In the second game of the season, two more names were added to the list, Charlotte’s Brandon Miller (17 points) and Chet Holmgren (16 points). Third game of the season, another name: Gradey Dick, who tallied 16 points for the Toronto Raptors. In every team’s first three games, rookies had crossed the 15-point plateau a total of eight times last year (Holmgren, Miller and Wembanyama did it multiple times).

But this season, that same number is zilch.

Since 1970, we typically see about nine such performances at this point in the season, sometimes as many as 17. The 2014-15…

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Author : Yahoo Sports

Publish date : 2024-10-30 16:36:00

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