Ranking LaMelo Ball, Anthony Edwards and other NBA rookies by future star potential

This year's rookie class hasn't had an easy transition to the NBA. A year ago, most of them were shut down, having seen the NCAA tournament canceled and the NBA put on hold. They faced an uncertain future as they declared for the draft -- a draft that ended up being held virtually -- and went through a pre-draft process that was completely different from anything that had come before. Then, after they were drafted, they had to jump almost immediately into training camp, with their rookie seasons tipping off just a month later.

With all that in mind, evaluating this year's rookies based on what they've done in four brief months of action has been more difficult than usual. Still, some have already demonstrated how their games will -- or in other cases won't -- translate to the NBA, and we know more about their potential for long-term success.

Taking into account what we've seen so far this season, we ranked this season's rookies by long-term outlook, starting with a player who wasn't the No. 1 pick, but who quickly established himself as the No. 1 talent among this year's rookies.

Note: Find each writer's top-10 rankings at the bottom of this article.

MORE: NBA's best 25 under 25

A class king emerges in the Queen City

Pelton: I think we've made our feelings about LaMelo Ball pretty clear, Mike. We both had him atop our draft boards last November, raved about him producing at a high level even sooner than expected back in January and then (along with our ESPN colleague Bobby Marks) ranked him No. 3 in future potential among all players younger than age 25 earlier this month.

That being said, I think the question is less whether Ball is our top rookie and more whether anyone else is even in the conversation. Additionally, I'm curious where else you think Ball is most in need of development to reach that high ceiling.

Schmitz: As we've made loud and clear all season, Ball has the talent to be one of the most exciting players in the NBA someday. With that said, there are still a handful of areas he'll need to improve to reach his sky-high potential.

Finishing around the rim should be one of Ball's top priorities in the short term. Improvement should come with physical maturation, but he leaves a lot of points on the board by missing bunnies in the paint, often going to his left hand unnecessarily and avoiding fouls. Ball's ability to create high-percentage offense for himself against elite defenders still remains to be seen, at least on a consistent basis. Given his light frame and still-improving finishing, Ball is very reliant on knocking down deep pull-ups to set up the dribble-drive attack, so he'll have to really be dialed in from distance and continue sharpening his in-between game to become a late-clock scoring threat.

Passing is obviously Ball's superpower, but whether or not he can score the ball efficiently against elite defenses will go a long way in determining if he can be the best player on a playoff team in the same breath of stars like Luka Doncic, Zion Williamson, and Jayson Tatum. On top of that, his physicality as an on-ball defender and consistency off the ball needs work, as is the case for most rookie guards.

Maybe most importantly, I'm curious to see just how durable Ball can be over the course of his career. Between the foot injury in Australia and the fact that he wasn't always known for finishing seasons prior to the professional ranks, there are still questions about whether he can consistently make it through an 82-game year. The fact that he plays a skill-based game should help him stay healthy.

Who's next?

Schmitz: Anthony Edwards is the clear-cut No. 2 for me. I never understood the Dion Waiters comparisons and based on what I've seen this season, I think he has a chance to be one of the NBA's top scorers for years to come. You just don't find players with that body type with that type of footwork and shift. The fact that he's shooting over 50% from 2 and 35% from 3 with a positive assist-to-turnover ratio over his past 10 games is a step in the right direction in terms of his efficiency.

He hasn't been able to turn around a struggling Timberwolves team as a 19-year-old, but the talent is eye-popping and Edwards has been a net positive, according to CleaningTheGlass.com. The defense and decision-making need attention, but he's an underrated passer and I think he has the ability to be a longtime NBA All-Star if he continues to develop.

KP, I noticed that Edwards didn't make your 25 under 25 list. Why is that, and what does his future look like to you?

Pelton: Naturally, Edwards' efficiency is a concern. His .501 true shooting percentage (TS%) might not have been out of place in a different era. LeBron James posted a .488 TS% fresh out of high school, worst among rookies who have averaged 20 PPG since the NBA-ABA merger, but that was only 5.4% worse than league average during a relative low point for NBA offense. By contrast, Edwards is 12.3% worse than the much higher league average now.

I'm also a bit worried about Edwards developing bad habits. He's getting all the minutes he wants without much support when Karl-Anthony Towns is out of the lineup, and he has a tendency to fall in love with the pull-up 3-pointer, a shot he's hitting at a 31% clip according to NBA Advanced Stats. His commitment to getting back on defense is abysmal. Minnesota goes from allowing 10.9 fast-break points per 100 possessions with Edwards on the bench to 15.9 with him on the court, a rate that would be worst in the league for a team by a comfortable margin.

That said, as you note Edwards has performed well enough lately that his most similar players at the same age are trending toward the guys who figured it out and became All-Stars. Bradley Beal and Devin Booker are his two best comps according to my SCHOENE projection system, so I would move him up to third among rookies, good enough for a spot in the top 25 under 25.

Still, I can't put Edwards ahead of Tyrese Haliburton. As you know, I've been a Haliburton believer since his unheralded freshman season at Iowa State, and yet his NBA performance has still blown me away in terms of his accuracy as a shooter and ability to create problems for defenses in the pick-and-roll game -- two perceived weaknesses entering the draft. Haliburton may not have the star equity of Edwards, but health permitting, he looks close to a lock to be a capable starter in the league for years to come. And the way he's exceeded expectations thus far suggests we shouldn't put a hard cap on his potential.

Schmitz: You're definitely right about Edwards' habits. Defensive intensity and shot selection have always been his biggest question marks, even dating back to his prep days. The talent is undeniable, but whether or not he can truly turn himself into a star will come down to his ability to impact winning consistently on both ends.

As for Haliburton, I also have him No. 3. I was a bit skeptical that he'd remain as efficient as he was during his freshman season if he played more of a ball-dominant role. But once I saw him alongside Cade Cunningham, Evan Mobley and Jalen Green at the U19s in Greece, it became pretty clear that Haliburton was going to be an NBA starter for a long time with a chance to develop into more than that. Once I learned more about him and went out to Vegas to watch him during the pre-draft process, I was sold.

Now that he has over 50 games of NBA tape under his belt, I still see Haliburton as the player we all hoped Lonzo Ball would be coming out of UCLA. He's still a bit unorthodox in that he doesn't play with much physicality on either end and rarely gets to the free throw line, but the fit with De'Aaron Fox is perfect. And I've heard nothing but rave reviews about how quickly Haliburton was able to change the culture in Sacramento with his intangibles and magnetic personality.

Potential or production?

Pelton: This is the more interesting part of the rankings because now we address the question of how much to value a player's rookie season compared to our assessment of them entering the draft. Ball, Edwards and Haliburton made up my top two tiers last November, so not much has changed there. But none of the three players in my third tier (Deni Avdija, Onyeka Okongwu and James Wiseman) has played particularly well. That gives players lower on the list an opportunity to move up.

Specifically, I'd go with Saddiq Bey and Immanuel Quickley, who respectively rank third and fourth in WARP by rookies this season. Bey was in the top half of my fifth tier of prospects and I didn't rank Quickley at all among my top 32 players. I expected Bey to be an effective 3-and-D role player in the NBA, but he's shown a bit more ability to create his own shot than I anticipated this early, elevating his ceiling a bit.

As for Quickley, I'm taking a lesson from his success: Put more value on players who combine quickness with capable outside shooting. Terry Rozier is another guard in that vein who has outperformed his college projections, while Jordan Poole looks like he might be developing in that mold, too. I get why Quickley doesn't always have Tom Thibodeau's trust; he's wildly inconsistent and takes the 12th-hardest set of shots among NBA players with at least 100 attempts this season, per Second Spectrum's tracking of shot quality based on location, distance of nearby defenders and shot types.

However, Quickley has proved capable of reasonable efficiency on those difficult shots because he's so accurate with his deep floaters and making 37.5% of his 3-point attempts. Assuming that mark isn't a fluke, Quickley has upside as he develops his decision-making. So I'd put him fourth and Bey fifth. How are you rounding out your top five, Mike?

Schmitz: This is usually where we differ most as I tend to hold onto my pre-draft ratings much longer, especially when we're talking about a rookie year with no summer league and an abbreviated training camp. With that in mind, I have Patrick Williams at 4 and Avdija at 5.

Although he hasn't been quite as productive in April, you could argue that Williams -- one of the youngest players in the NBA -- is already ahead of schedule. He's knocking down 38% of his 3s this season and has the powerful frame and length to hang with elite wings like Tatum, James and Kawhi Leonard in the mid-post. He also has more shot creation potential than most players in his mold given his mid-range game, handle and footwork. With his youth, tools, improved shooting and the fact that he plays a position every NBA team is looking for, I like Williams' combination of floor and upside.

As for Avdija, it's no secret that he's had major ups and downs this season. His shooting and confidence from 3 remain wildly inconsistent, he's struggled to finish in traffic and he's looked quite rigid with the ball in the half court. While he's shown defensive potential when locked in, fouls and off-ball lapses plagued him early in his rookie season.

With that said, Avdija has shown enough glimpses as a floor-spacer, multi-positional defender and open court playmaker for me to remain bullish on him long-term given all I've seen from him since he was 16. While part of Avdija's intrigue was his NBA readiness given his EuroLeague and FIBA experience, it's a tough adjustment for an international prospect to go from a European style to playing alongside two high-usage guards in Beal and Russell Westbrook. Even with his ups and downs, the Wizards have been better with Avdija on the floor than off on both ends according to CleaningTheGlass.com, and I think that as he settles into the NBA game we'll see more of the playmaking ability that made him so effective at the FIBA level.

Since we're talking about wings, I'd slot Isaac Okoro at No. 6 thanks to his ability to impact the game on both ends of the floor along with his underrated playmaking, improving shooting and impressive intangibles. Okoro leads the Cavs in games played, ranks third in minutes and is shooting 37% from 3 over his last 10 games. Often compared to Jimmy Butler in the pre-draft process, it might not be until year three or four that we start to fully see Okoro come into his own offensively like Butler did, but I'd bet on him maximizing his full potential.

Rounding out the top 10

Schmitz: While I love Quickley's microwave scoring and intangibles, I tend to lean more toward young wings like Williams, Avdija and Okoro. Kevin, am I wrong in assuming that none of those three made your top 10? How does the rest of your top 10 look?

Pelton: You are right, though by the time we get out of the top nine things get pretty close. One common concern is that none of the three has been heavily involved in the offense finishing plays. In fact, both Okoro and Williams have two of the lowest usage rates about top-five picks in the lottery era:

Avdija's similarly low usage rate (12% of Wizards plays) isn't as unusual for someone drafted in the back half of the top 10 but still troubling in the context of his below-average efficiency.

To me, Bey and Devin Vassell are the stronger 3-and-D prospects from this year's rookie class. Vassell is my No. 6 rookie. He hasn't played heavy minutes on a San Antonio team flush with young wings but has been effective when he has gotten an opportunity, making 40% of his 3-point attempts and contributing more stocks (combined steals and blocks) on a per-possession basis. I'd also put Desmond Bane a bit lower in my top 10 (eighth) as another instant contributor (he's making 46% of his 3s!) at a more advanced age.

In between them, I'd put Isaiah Stewart, who's been a force in the paint. He's making 60% of his 2-point attempts, has dominated the glass and exceeded my expectations by blocking shots at an above-average rate. As Stewart develops his skill, including a nascent 3-point game (12-of-28 this season), he could supplant Mason Plumlee as a capable starting center in Detroit. In ninth, I'm putting a player from the 2019 draft: Chuma Okeke, who sat out the 2019-20 season following ACL surgery. Rusty early on, Okeke has been showing more of his well-rounded game as a starter. He's another player with more stocks than this year's lottery picks and is contributing 35% 3-point shooting and even some playmaking.

My last spot came down to Okongwu and Jaden McDaniels. I'm taking Okongwu because I was a bigger believer in him in the draft and he hasn't so much played poorly as barely played at all since coming back from a toe injury that cost him all of training camp. It's a bit troubling how small Okongwu looks compared to NBA centers, but he's still hitting 63% of his 2-point attempts and blocking shots at an above-average rate, a formula that should eventually make him a contributor.

The other player who didn't make my top 10 worth addressing is Wiseman. I felt obligated to put him in my third tier as a prospect because of the number of evaluators who thought he was the best player in the draft. Wiseman's up-and-down rookie season reinforced the reasons I was skeptical. In fairness to Wiseman, he's gotten the hardest landing possible. The Warriors put huge expectations on Wiseman to contribute after playing just three NCAA games -- without the benefit of summer league and with a limited training camp after Wiseman missed time in the NBA's health and safety protocols.

It's entirely possible that Wiseman will come back from meniscus repair looking like the dominant force his combination of size, skill and agility portends. But I'm concerned his poor shot selection and difficulty catching passes will keep Wiseman from being effective enough offensively as he adds needed experience at the defensive end. Do you have Wiseman in your top 10, Mike?

Schmitz: Like you, I was quite skeptical of Wiseman as an elite prospect heading into the draft because of his limited instincts and inconsistent toughness. I was very vocal about how the Warriors would have been wise to draft Ball. While the tools are clearly overwhelming, non-passing bigs are dime a dozen in the NBA. The flashes Wiseman did show as a lob-catcher and floor spacer were enough for me to keep him in the top 10 at No. 9, only a few spots below here I had him pre-draft. Given the fact that he was never the most resilient competitor during his prep career, I am a bit concerned about his durability after the injury.

As far as Williams is concerned, I do think you have to take the situation into account to some degree when comparing him to a veteran like Bey. I like Bey and would slot him at No. 7 because of his productivity and stellar intangibles, but the fact that he's doing this as a 22 year old on one of the worst teams in the NBA with ultimate freedom should be factored in. Williams is two and a half years younger with a much more impressive physical profile and quite a bit of untapped offensive and defensive potential. I think he can have a Jaylen Brown type of trajectory as a guy who played a role as a rookie and continued to add more and more layers to his game. The Bulls clearly aren't as competitive as the Celtics were during Brown's rookie campaign, but playing alongside Zach LaVine and Nikola Vucevic clearly plays a role in the low usage rate, as does his lack of high-level experience coming into this season.

With young wings, I always think it's important to become really good at the role-player skills before being unleashed as any type of shot creator. That's the path that we've seen players like Brown, Kawhi Leonard and even OG Anunoby to some degree take with great success. I wasn't quite as sold that Bey would be the shooter he was at Villanova from NBA 3 and had questions about his lack of high-end explosiveness, but he's surpassed my expectations as a shooter and does have a little more playmaking potential than he's shown this season.

After Bey, I went with Okongwu, who I was pretty vocal about being the best big in this class leading up to the draft. He started off the year slowly due to injury and hasn't been about to carve out the most consistent role with the way Clint Capela is playing and the Hawks in the playoff hunt. But the glimpses of touch around the rim and defensive instincts have been impressive when he does see the floor, even if his lack of size has limited him on the interior. From my experience, run-and-jump bigs with elite tools like a Wiseman tend to jump off the screen early in their careers before plateauing whereas more cerebral bigs without elite physical traits like Okongwu take some time to figure out the NBA game.

I'll round out my top-10 with Stewart, who could easily surpass both Okongwu and Wiseman the next time we do this exercise. As I mentioned on the Lowe Post earlier in the year, Stewart is famous for outplaying Wiseman head-to-head at All-Star practices, USA Basketball camps and on the EYBL circuit. He also thoroughly dominated Okongwu in their head-to-head Pac-12 matchup. I do think Okongwu would be putting up similar numbers if he were in Detroit, but you have to love Stewart's relentless motor, thirst for physicality and no-nonsense style. I also think he'll make NBA 3s consistently down the road. Given the circumstances of this year, I'm leaning on my pre-draft ranking with these three bigs, but I do think Stewart could ultimately surpass both if he continues playing like he has.

McDaniels was probably the hardest guy to leave off this list. I was a huge advocate of his when we briefly ranked him No. 1 overall before he started his collegiate career and he looks the part of a longtime NBA starter. While it's coming on the worst team in the NBA, he's started the last 15 games for Minnesota and is shooting 52% from 2 and 37% from 3 over his last 10. Fluid 6-foot-10 wings who can shoot, handle and move defensively aren't easy to find. I'm really interested to see what he looks like as a player in two or three years.

I also thought about Kira Lewis Jr. for the final spot because of his talent and youth. I do like Quickley as a bench scorer, but he's tailed off over his past five games -- 17% from 2 and 33% from 3 -- and a lot of the wings I ranked ahead of him play a role that's more difficult to find. Lastly, I'm really interested to follow the trajectory of international prospects like Aleksej Pokusevski and Killian Hayes, both of whom went higher than most NBA personnel expected. Theo Maledon is another name to keep an eye on.