Photo by Dustin Satloff/Getty Images
The top picks from the 2022 NBA Draft are looking pretty good so far.
Early on in their rookie seasons in the NBA, the top of the 2022 NBA Draft class is showing up roughly as their draft positions would indicate. Taking aside Chet Holmgren (2nd pick, OKC), out for the season with a Lisfranc injury, the five highest drafted rookies take up the five highest scoring spots among rookies.
Paolo Banchero (1st, ORL) – 24.0 PPG
Bennedict Mathurin (6th, IND) – 20.8 PPG
Keegan Murray (4th, SAC) – 17.5 PPG
Jaden Ivey (5th, DET) – 16.0 PPG
Jabari Smith Jr. (3rd, HOU) – 14.2 PPG
Branching out a bit deeper into the lottery, Shaedon Sharpe (7th, POR) adds a lot to a Portland bench that has played a big part in the Blazers’ 4-1 start.
Taking a closer look at three sure-fire All-Rookie candidates, Banchero, Mathurin, and Sharpe are three of the biggest standouts for me thus far:
Paolo Banchero: 24.0 points, 7.6 rebounds, 3.2 assists (2.8 turnovers)
If he’s not 1A on the early Rookie of the Year ladder, he’s 1B behind Mathurin. It took zero games before Banchero’s rare combination of size, athleticism, and skill caught up to the NBA level, leaving him as already one of the most important players in Orlando’s rotation.
No one on the Magic is getting close to as many shots as Banchero, and he’s even getting easily the highest usage in the clutch. Speaking of the clutch, he’s excelling there, boasting a 68 true shooting percentage, second only among rookies to Smith Jr.’s 72.5 percent mark.
It’s no surprise, though, as games wind down, they tend to slow down and become more of an isolation game. Banchero is built for those moments, and his polish inside the arc is up there with the best of them at his size.
Per Synergy, Banchero’s run 22 possessions as a pick-and-roll ball handler, scoring 1.045 points per possession (PPP). His PPP mark is top 10 in the league, top among rookies, and top among all players 6-10 or taller. Running those types of possessions at that size to that level of effectiveness this early in his career is a massively important building block going forward.
Bennedict Mathurin: 20.8 points, 5.0 rebounds, 2.4 assists (2.0 turnovers)
Five games in, Mathurin is yet to start a game in the NBA. Buddy Hield and Aaron Nesmith are the starters in the 2/3 slot, and Indiana head coach Rick Carlisle notoriously hates playing rookies heavy minutes (except in some Luka Doncic-type situations).
However, Mathurin is getting legit rotation minutes – never fewer than 24 – and he’s already picked up quite the rapport with starting point guard and young franchise cornerstone Tyrese Haliburton.
Per NBA.com, out of Indiana’s two-man combos that have logged at least 65 minutes together, Mathurin/Haliburton boasts the best net rating at -0.2 (78 total minutes), pretty exceptional for a team that’s very clearly in the business of tanking – or at least will be after a likely Hield/Myles Turner trade later this season.
Among all rookies that are playing at least 10 minutes per game, Mathurin is second only to Banchero in usage rate. A good chunk of that heavy usage is coming in transition – 23.5% of his possessions in fact – and they’re ending well in most cases. He’s scoring 1.565 PPP, which ranks in the 86th percentile for transition scoring.
Shaedon Sharpe: 10.1 points, 3.2 rebounds, 0.4 assists (1.0 turnovers)
In a much different context than Banchero and Mathurin, Sharpe isn’t asked to dominate possessions on the ball except defensively, where he’s been a bright spot off of Portland’s bench.
He’s also provided offense from the wing spot around the margins to complete lineups alongside the likes of Dame Lillard, Anfernee Simons, and Jerami Grant. Here are some fun lineup combo stats from the three most frequent three-man groups that Sharpe is part of:
Sharpe with Simons and Nas Little: +8.1 net (48 total minutes)
with Justise Winslow and Little: +2.2 (44 min.)
with Winslow and Simons: +19.5 (37 min.)
Point being that Sharpe is making positive impacts right from the jump despite his unusual path to the NBA that saw him attend Kentucky (for roughly a semester? It’s honestly still a little murky at this point, to me) but never log a minute for #BBN.
It’s been a trend that we’ve seen more of lately, but some players are just built to play in the league, and it might not be as clear before they get there. Sharpe is one, Tari Eason (17th, HOU) is another, who struggled to make the college game look easy, but has proven early in his career that he belongs on an NBA floor.
With 15 points and 8 rebounds in 21 minutes against the Heat on Wednesday, Sharpe now has three double-digit outputs in five games. Pretty good for going such a long time without playing organized basketball.
Here’s what my All-Rookie teams would look like at the moment … we have a long way to go.
First Team: Banchero, Mathurin, Murray, Ivey, Sharpe
Second Team: Eason, Jalen Duren (13th, DET), Andrew Nembhard (31st, IND), Smith Jr., Jake LaRavia (19th, MEM)
