When Carmelo Anthony came in a surprising 64th in ESPN's #NBArank, part of the story was the player directly in front of the 10-time All-Star: No. 2 overall pick Lonzo Ball, who had yet to play in an NBA game.
Along with No. 1 pick Markelle Fultz of the Philadelphia 76ers and Dennis Smith Jr. of the Dallas Mavericks, drafted ninth, Ball was one of three rookies from the 2017 draft to finish in the top 100 of #NBArank voting. (A fourth rookie in the top 100, Fultz's Philadelphia teammate Ben Simmons, was the No. 1 pick of the 2016 draft but missed his first season in the NBA due to injury.)
Yet the record shows few rookies -- and particularly few point guards -- tend to be so valuable. Are expectations too high for this year's crop of rookie point guards?
Rookies in the top 100
Last season, it took 3.4 wins above replacement player (WARP) to rank among the NBA's top 100 players by my value metric. Just two rookies reached that threshold: Sixers center Joel Embiid (4.4 WARP) and New York Knicks center Willy Hernangomez (4.1). Rookie of the Year Malcolm Brogdon of the Milwaukee Bucks just missed with 3.0 WARP, though he rated much better in ESPN's real plus-minus (RPM) because of his defensive value; Brogdon's 5.7 RPM wins ranked 74th in the league.
Those three players have something in common: They were all much older than the one-and-done prospects picked in this year's #NBArank top 100. Embiid was drafted in 2014 but did not debut until 2016-17 because of a navicular fracture; he turned 23 after his season ended prematurely. Hernangomez was 22, having been drafted in 2015, but he remained overseas an additional season. And though he was the lone 2016 pick of the three, Brogdon was actually the oldest at 24, having spent five years at Virginia due to a medical redshirt.
A similar trend is evident looking back at the recent history of rookies in the WARP top 100. Over the past decade, during which one-and-done prospects have ruled the top of the draft, 31 rookies -- an average of a little more than three per year -- have ranked among the league's top 100 in WARP. More than half of that group had turned 22 by the end of their rookie season. Just seven of the 31 were players in their second year out of high school. (Two others, Nerlens Noel and Greg Oden, were drafted after one year in college but, like Simmons, missed their first NBA season due to injury.)
Notable in their absence from that list are plenty of All-Stars, including a pair of MVPs: Kevin Durant (0.8 WARP as a rookie before improving dramatically in Year 2) and Derrick Rose (3.1 WARP). That's how difficult it is for inexperienced rookies to be among the league's best players -- particularly point guards.
One-and-done point guard performance
All three 2017 draft picks in the #NBArank top 100 were point guards -- assuming Fultz ends up playing regularly at the position despite Simmons serving as the 76ers' primary ball handler -- and despite the presence of two of them on the previous list, the track record of one-and-done point guards is particularly dire. Over the past decade, 20 one-and-done players have primarily played point guard as rookies. Here's how they've performed:
Just half of the group performed better than replacement level as rookies, with just four of them coming anywhere close to the top 100. Naturally, three of those four high-performing one-and-done rookie point guards were the No. 1 overall pick in their draft, with Jennings -- who spent his one season after high school playing professionally in Italy rather than in college -- as the exception.
Fultz and Ball are similarly touted, since both were considered possible No. 1 overall picks. But Smith, who slipped to ninth on draft night, would have to join Jennings as an exception to the rule.
How do this year's three one-and-done rookie point guards compare as prospects to their predecessors? Let's focus in on one-and-done point guards drafted in the top 10.
Ball's projected rookie winning percentage -- the per-minute component of WARP, akin to PER -- ranks second to Irving of this group. However, based on their college performance, Smith and Fultz don't look like the same kind of instant contributors. That's not to say they're bad prospects; this doesn't consider age, and Fultz, who turned 19 in late May, is one of the youngest one-and-done draft picks in recent memory. Once age is incorporated, Fultz ranked fourth in my stats-only projections for the 2017 draft (Ball was first) and Smith sixth.
It's certainly possible that, like Rose before them, Fultz and Smith could exceed their rookie projections and get within shouting distance of the top 100. Still, their placement in the #NBArank list looks exceedingly optimistic. It's more likely they develop into quality NBA point guards in their second season than as rookies.
Putting Ball in the top 100 is much more reasonable, though expectations should still be tempered by the inability of Lakers predecessor D'Angelo Russell -- also a No. 2 pick whose projection was previously second to Irving among this group -- to help the team win as a rookie. And box-score stats such as WARP will likely overstate Ball's value as a rookie because they won't factor in his poor on-ball defense. So I'd probably have Ball closer to last in the top 100 than where he actually ranked.
It's right to be excited about the potential of Fultz, Ball and Smith. However, becoming a good NBA player is difficult enough for any 19- or 20-year-old, let alone one who also has to learn a new offense and try to deal with the talented veterans at point guard in the league right now. Expecting this year's top rookie point guards to be valuable players right away is simply unrealistic.