Top Rookies After One Month

Jabari Parker finished his first month in the NBA on Saturday night against the Rockets by leading the Bucks in points (19), rebounds (9), assists (5), steals (2), and something else (something).

Full disclosure: Parker also led the Bucks in turnovers (4) against the Rockets. Harden also led the Rockets in turnovers against the Bucks. In fact, he leads all of the NBA in turnovers this season. Not that it is an inherently good thing on its own, but the Rockets can live with Harden’s turnovers, because he has so much on-ball responsibility, and typically makes good things happen.

Parker could not quite keep up with Harden and the Rockets, but with a boost of assertiveness he did manage to beat the best at his own game, converting a career-best 13-of-14 free throws on the night. At Duke as a freshman, Parker got to the line more than six times per game. In the pros, he is at roughly half that number. That number just went up and it is going to keep going up. How high it goes will help determine how high Parker rises on the scoring list, on the lists where you can easily find Harden.

Here are the top-10 rookies so far according to me. This is not a prediction of what is to come, only an evaluation of what has happened so far.

In terms of per-game averages, he leads all rookies in scoring (11.9), and ranks second in rebounding (6.1) and steals (1.3). But this is not just a matter of crediting Parker because he is playing a lot and putting up solid traditional stats. In fact, he ranks just as highly among rookies in PER (15.1) as he does in minutes per game – third in both. And the two players who rank above him in PER (Aaron Gordon and Nikola Mirotic) only are ahead ever-so-slightly and they haven’t played nearly as many minutes. There is a long way to go, but Parker rated first in NBA.com’s latest rookie rankings, he was recently the consensus pick as top rookie so far at ESPN.com, and should be on his way to his first of multiple Rookie of the Month awards.

The Sixers have not won an overabundance of games, but Noel has blocked a shot in all but one of his 14 games and has even hit double-figures in scoring in four of his last six games. His rebounding could and should improve, and he already leads all rookies in blocks (1.3) and steals (1.6) per game. And this helps: Noel also leads all rookies in minutes per game (30.5), helping make up for the lost time of a lost season last year.

Sure, he is getting more minutes than he would anywhere else, but McDaniels looks like a second-round keeper for the Sixers. He is a sometimes-menace on defense (already has games with 4 and 3 blocks), and over the past two games is averaging 19.5 points and 9.5 rebounds along with a 46.8 FG%. He can defend a little, shoot threes a little, and finish in transition a lot. Outlook is good.

He is a power forward with a both a 3-point shot (39.5%) and the ability to rebound (second among rookies in total rebound percentage at 15.9). Mirotic also ranks second among rookies with a 15.9 PER, just a touch above Parker, but he has played roughly half as many minutes as Parker. He is probably already the eighth or ninth man on a good Bulls team when they are fully healthy, and he has been clearly better than #11 overall pick and teammate Doug McDermott.

Off to an encouraging start from beyond the arc (44.0%), Wiggins has struggled to finish elsewhere on the court. He is tied with Parker for the rookie lead in terms of scoring per game and shot attempts per game, but he simply doesn’t do it as efficiently, and that shows up in his 9.5 PER. That said, he has shone very brightly at times, like his night against the Kings when he put up 29 points (9-of-10 on free throws, 2-of-4 on threes) and four steals.

Really unfortunate that Gordon broke his left foot after just 11 games, because the youngest player in the NBA this season had been one of the best rookies in the game, ranking second among all rookies in PER (15.4). He was a low-usage player with a small sample size, but Gordon showed off the ability to keep things simple as a finisher on offense and was a disrupter on defense. He even made his last three threes before going down with the injury.

Napier is pushing Norris Cole for minutes, as the 23-year-old has arrived with a decent portion of an NBA game. He ranks second behind only Gordon with a 60.1 TS%, particularly impressive as a point guard. But he has also been turnover-prone, with a straight 1:1 assist-to-turnover ratio.

Payton’s 42.1 TS% is third-worst among the 25 rookies who have played 100 minutes this season, and that hurts. So he has lived down to his reputation as a poor shooter thus far (even struggling badly at the line), but leads the class easily in assists per game (and per minute) while earning some praise for his defense (he recently had five steals in 22 minutes off the bench against Napier and the Heat) and vision on offense.

A starter in all 15 games for the Nets, Bogdanovich had cooled off considerably after a strong mid-November when he twice put together games with 22 points on over 70.0 percent shooting… but recovered a bit over the weekend with a 13-point, 5-rebound effort against the Bulls.

The best rebounder in the class so far (in terms of total rebound percentage) has started seven games already with Dwight Howard out. Against the Bucks on Saturday night, he gave a solid eight points and five rebounds in 21 minutes, which is a reasonable representation of what he has been doing over the past few weeks.