With about 13% of the season's games played, rookies are producing at a pace of about 41 equivalent-wins for the season.
The Eastern Conference is getting about 60% of these eWins.
3 of top 6 here I had significantly higher on draft board than Twitter consensus and actual pick number. 1 about the same, 2 lower.
Smith at 14th here is worst under-performance to date, at least for those making appearances in top 15. Davis, Dieng and Duren are lottery picks who did not make top 15 here.
Banchero 13th on BPM. Smith 30th. Other under-performers to date out there.
Thanks, I just found it.
Among rookies with at least 60 minutes, he's 4th in BPM and in WS/48 -- behind Kessler, Eason, Griffin.
Ranking guys with 4 or 6 total minutes is not very meaningful. That's why I multiply by minutes, for total impact.
Often I'll qualify a list but sometimes I don't. Real early, many of the minute totals are trivial, even if way more than the super trivial.
Banchero at 4th for guys with semi-meaningful minutes is closer to my big board rank of 5th than it is the actual selection and the many media boards that had him 1st or 2nd.
Big role, big individual game level stats don't necessarily mean big positive impact.
DARKO projection has Banchero at 119th overall but 2nd most improved over pre-season estimate.
Very impressed with first 7 games, rising about 3 points; but not impressed with next 4, giving back a point. Not sure I see reason for the very different views. We'll probably get stronger estimates after 20 and 40 games.
Griffin's short minutes impact ranking, as do many meh to weak stats. Long-term value? Too early to say with confidence.
Heat's ability to find and use cheap new players helps a little in context of their over-pays of Lowry, Robinson and Herro, all negative on team +/- ob the court and on / off. DRIP still favorable on Lowry (may need movement down) but only neutral on Herro and -1 on Robinson.
By b-r.com position designation:
PF 15.7
SG 15.4
C 6.8
SF 6.4
PG 1.8
Pels' Daniels with almost all the point guard minutes and eWins. With better assist rates, Nembhard and Ivey have 16% and 14% of their minutes at PG, respectively.
Jabari Smith near -4 / 100p on BPM. Near -1 on DRIP. A bit worse than -2 on EPM. Near -3 on Darko and 62nd of 66 rookies on that projection.
To interpret that set of marks, one could evaluate the metrics as part of the process.
Offensive usage is a big part of the score, though the metrics vary on reward for that per se and efficiency. Defense surely varies; and while some are probably better than others, not sure how good even the best are.
Jabari Smith starts over fellow rookie Tari Eason, though it looks like Eason is better at everything. Their on/off rates are spectacularly different, the Rockets about 26 pts/100 better with Eason instead of Smith.
Yet the team is projecting about 5 wins better than predicted (avg.), and the coach doesn't seem to be an idiot. Maybe their bench is keeping them in games and winning a few.
My spreadsheet estimates that Eason has played against (and with) about 46% starting players.
This is somewhat corroborated by seeing his 4 highest minute games (23-29 min) have all been double-digit losses. https://www.basketball-reference.com/pl ... melog/2023
Sorting by GameScore returns a similar breakdown, plus a 2*OT win over Philly.
A lot of players, perhaps most, will rack up better numbers against bench players. Jabari Smith is estimated at 79% vs starters. Banchero plays the most minutes in close games, est. 76% vs opposing starters. Mathurin 54%, Kessler 50%
It's hard to generalize what those numbers mean. Kessler is certainly in elite FG% territory, but his points are entirely within a few feet of the basket. Check out the new b-r.com shooting pages! -- https://www.basketball-reference.com/pl ... oting/2023
Only potential weak point I can see is that in close games (< 5 pts) he has only hit 64%
-- well, and he's a 54% FT shooter.