NBA Rookie Rankings: Spurs’ Stephon Castle surges toward top of class

It’s time for the three-quarter-mark edition of the NBA Rookie Rankings.

The good news is that a few rookies are at least improving as the season rolls along. The bad news is that this continues to be arguably the least productive rookie class of the last 20 years. Only five rookies are averaging double-figures in points, and one of those players, the Philadelphia 76ers’ Jared McCain, will play under 600 minutes this year because of a knee injury. For reference, last year there were eight double-figure scorers. The year before, there were nine. In 2022, we actually had 12! In 2021, following what was perceived to be a down 2020 draft class, there were still 10 double-figure scorers. There were 15 in 2020!

The last time there were this few double-digit scorers was the Malcolm Brogdon Rookie of the Year season back in 2017. That’s the season most comparable to this one from a rookie perspective. Ultimately, there were six All-Stars from that class, which is about in line with the average. However, one of those was Ben Simmons, whose career went sideways, and I would argue that, while Jaylen Brown and Pascal Siakam have had great careers as guys who have made All-NBA teams and won titles, neither has ever been the best player on a particularly good team. Currently, I think I’d take under 5.5 All-Stars to emerge from the 2024 draft class.

To refresh on the rankings as a whole: We rank the league’s top 15 rookies, based on how they have performed as NBA players. These are not based on how they are doing at the time of the rankings or a projection of the players they will become. They are full-season assessments of how they have played to this point in their NBA careers.

What do I look for when I rank players? Minutes and roles matter. What is each rookie getting asked to do? How often are they seeing the court? Are they being asked to create offense for their teams? Is their role limited, and how successful are they in that role? How successful is the team with them within that role? What is the degree of difficulty of said role? Is the player logging real minutes on a good team or eating up minutes on a bad team that doesn’t have anyone better?

This is an art, not a science. The rankings involve examining numbers and analyzing a painstaking amount of tape, and I value the latter more.

The structure is as follows: I rank the rookies, write about three of them in-depth, then explain the rest of the rankings with some notes.

(Team and player statistics are as of Sunday night.)

Stephon Castle looks like the best long-term bet

I’ve been pretty steadfast over the last month that Jaylen Wells should be the Rookie of the Year, and I still have him ranked No. 1. His overall efficiency, shooting, high IQ play and defense has been enormous for the Memphis Grizzlies throughout the season. Given the sheer number of injuries the team has had, Wells’ steady positive play on both ends and ability to eat up serious minutes on the wing while taking on tough assignments has been crucial in putting the Grizzlies in position to get a top-four seed in the loaded Western Conference. This seems absurd, but by the end of the week, Wells will likely have played the most minutes of anyone on the Grizzlies this year. He deserves to be rewarded for that.

Castle, however, is coming on quickly. He went through some early slumps, including his first eight games of the season and a 12-game stretch when he moved to the bench in December. Those games account for one-third of his season and are primarily responsible for why he has a true-shooting percentage that is 10 percent below league average. However, no rookie in the league is playing better right now. Over his last 19 games, Castle is averaging 17.4 points, 4.4 rebounds and 3.4 assists while shooting 46.4 percent from the field, 32.9 percent from 3 and 72.8 percent from the line. His true-shooting percentage over that time has spiked up to 55.4. He’s a tough-minded defender who takes on difficult assignments nightly and consistently creates deflections and steals.

Moreover, Castle is doing it against tough competition. He had 22 points, seven rebounds and five assists versus the Houston Rockets, 24 points and seven assists against the Grizzlies, 32 points and eight rebounds against Oklahoma City and then 25 points against the Sacramento Kings over the last two weeks. A big help there has been the leap from the 3-point line, where Castle is shooting 34 percent over his last 21 games as opposed to his 25.3 percent mark over the first 39 games. Is this a hot stretch, or is it growth? That remains to be seen, but I think he has clearly done work on getting his release in order. Earlier in the year, it felt like Castle’s release point would sometimes be a bit higher, and he’d shoot moonballs. Other times, he would hang onto it too long and shoot a flatter shot. Now, it feels like he’s found his rhythm, and while he’s not a knockdown guy, he is a bit more reliable and consistent.

More than the jumper, the superpower that Castle has always had is the ability to diagnose space and understand it on the court. Even last year at Connecticut, where he played even more off the ball than he does this year, he had a sharp sense of when and where to cut. He knew how to best space the floor for his teammates and how to create opportunities for himself. Then he’d also crash the offensive glass to find little put-backs, a skill that has extended to the NBA. And with that general basketball IQ also comes the ability to navigate bodies on the interior. He understands how to maneuver around players both with his drives and with his gathers toward the rim. His handle has also improved a bit. He’s more sudden with it, and his ability to play at pace with little hesitations before exploding toward the rim has been critical in his success. He understands how to time his drives now for when defenders vacate their stunt help at the elbow, and how to best find the open areas that allow him to finish. Look here at how he freezes Jake LaRavia as his on-ball defender, gives DeMar DeRozan time to leave the elbow in help and then powers up for a straight-line drive to get to the rim to finish through contact.

Castle’s finishing has dropped a bit recently in half-court settings, but he projects to be an excellent player at the rim in this situation in San Antonio. The spacing has been a bit rough for the Spurs since Victor Wembanyama was ruled out for the season with his blood clot issue, as so much of what the team had been doing was incumbent upon pulling the big man away from the rim. When Castle is on the floor with Wembanyama, per PBPStats, he finishes 67 percent of his attempts at the rim. With Wembanyama off the court, Castle is only making 60 percent of his shots at the rim, and that number drops even more precipitously in half-court settings. His ability to find those spaces and explode upward with force gives him excellent contact balance blended with terrific defender navigation skills. It also helps that Castle is about 215 pounds already and can shrug guys off with his shoulders going to the rim with ease. And all of this is before we get to Castle on defense, where he’s been excellent this season in taking tough assignments and constantly being available in help situations.

What does all of this mean? Really, Castle is going to be as valuable as his shooting allows him to be. If he can keep growing and become a real shooter off the catch, he projects to be an incredibly high-level wing in between De’Aaron Fox and Wembanyama who can attack closeouts, get downhill and act as a secondary shot creator. If he can’t shoot, a lot of those things fall apart. That’s why he’s had stretches this year where he’s been fairly ineffective and why his overall play hasn’t been consistent until this recent 20-game run.

If you made me bet on one player to be an All-Star at this point from this class, I think my pick would be Castle. The skills he’s showcased — particularly within the new calendar year — have given me hope that there is real unsettled upside here as he continues to grow into his game. He’s also good enough to be on the court now, which should allow him to keep getting better as he gets more reps. This is a definite hit for the Spurs at No. 4 in the draft. They should be very happy with their pick, and if Castle keeps playing like this, he has a good shot to end up as my selection for Rookie of the Year in the final surge.

Donovan Clingan helps surging Blazers

With Deandre Ayton’s recent calf injury, Donovan Clingan has finally been given his chance to play in the starting lineup for the Portland Trail Blazers consistently over the last 11 games. And while the counting numbers aren’t blowing anybody away, it’s clear Clingan is the Blazers’ center of the future and has a real shot to be an impact guy at the position moving forward.

Over those 11 games, Clingan is playing 22 minutes per night and averaging 7.6 points, 9.4 rebounds, 1.6 assists and 1.6 blocks while shooting 56.5 percent. He’s not a perfect player. His touch around the rim through contact needs to keep making strides. He’s not overly vertical, so that part of his game will need to be right. There are games and matchups where fouling has been an issue, including a four-point loss to the Cleveland Cavaliers earlier this month and a recent seven-point loss last week to the Detroit Pistons. I think it’s reasonable to say that Clingan needs to keep getting his body into better shape. He looks a bit heavier than he did by the end of last season at Connecticut, and an offseason of conditioning work will hopefully lead him toward being able to play more consistent minutes at a higher level.

But when he’s on the court, it’s hard not to notice Clingan’s impact. He sets crushing screens and is terrific at the top of the key in working with Portland’s guards in dribble-handoffs. He throws ridiculous and fun bounce passes with velocity or touch, navigating his way around arms and limbs to execute them. The best recent one came against Detroit, when Scoot Henderson tried to hit him on a lob in transition but Clingan wasn’t there in time. He catches, and before falling out of bounds while getting doubled, he finds Toumani Camara streaking to the rim for a massive poster dunk over a great defender in Isaiah Stewart.

More than the offense, Clingan’s ability to take up space on the interior and communicate defensively has been critical to Portland’s surge on that end in recent weeks. Since Clingan has been starting, the team is allowing only 110.4 points per 100 possessions, which is about the mark the Blazers give up with Clingan on the floor during that time. That is a top-five mark in the league over this run, and two points per 100 possessions better even than the team’s run over the previous month, which included 10 wins in 11 games. He’s a massive human being on the interior even by NBA standards and takes up an immense amount of space in drop coverage in ball screens. He does a fantastic job contesting in gaps and playing the one-on-two in between the guard and the big incredibly well. He’s also terrific in help coverage rotating across from the weak side, consistently contesting shots and sometimes ending possessions with swats.

Here’s a great example of all of this coming together, as the Lakers run a ram ball screen into a Spain action that requires strong communication from Clingan. He manages the gap between LeBron James and Trey Jemison perfectly, cutting off James’ drive before rotating across Jemison to block his attempt. Then he rotates off Jemison, contests another attempt at the rim from a cutter before getting all the way back to block another Jemison attempt at the rim to force a shot-clock violation. You can’t really do it better than this. This is elite rim protection.

The Blazers have been one of the most fun teams in the league during the second half largely thanks to their defensive prowess. With Clingan, Camara and Deni Avdija, Portland projects to have one of the best defensive frontcourts in the league for a long time — especially given that those three combine to make $47 million total over the next two years (with Clingan and Avdija having an additional year locked in for about $21 million total in 2027-28). The backcourt has some questions — even if Henderson and Shaedon Sharpe are real potential answers as long-term playmakers there, especially given Henderson’s leap in the second half of the season — but the frontcourt is going to give the Blazers a baseline of competence moving forward.

Kel’el Ware’s second-half breakout

The season started slowly for Kel’el Ware in Miami; he played just 68 minutes in the team’s first 25 games. But after that, Ware burst onto the scene and became an exceedingly valuable rookie. If you remove those early-season games where he was playing like six minutes per night to drag down his numbers over the full season, he’s averaging 10.5 points, eight rebounds, one assist and 1.3 blocks per game while shooting 56 percent from the field and making nearly a 3 per game.

Ware does it by essentially being an outlier athlete at the center position. He’s explosive on offense with serious leaping ability. Few players have more gravity than he does rolling to the rim. Of the 25 players averaging at least 2.5 points per game as the roll man in ball-screen situations, Ware’s 1.24 points per possession — per Synergy — in these moments is eighth-best. He skies to the rim and high-points the ball as well as any player in the league. He gets off the ground with easy lift and has a 7-foot-6 wingspan that allows him to catch higher than anyone else. The Heat hammered the New York Knicks recently with Ware ball screens; the Knicks never seemed to find the right balance of how to defend in the gaps or how to tag him timely. Because you have to stay attached to him for so long with his length and leaping ability, he’s a constant presence who allows the Heat guards to drive deeper into the lane, knowing that eventually they can just throw the ball up to Ware and he’ll probably go get it.

Ware has also made about 34 percent of his two 3-point attempts per game over that half-season run. He’s not quite a real floor-spacer insofar as he doesn’t always get guarded beyond the 3-point line. Teams are generally willing to let him shoot from that distance. But there’s a chance that this could change, especially if the two-big lineup that Miami has run out recently continues to thrive.

The Ware impact on Miami’s offense can’t be overstated. When he’s out there, the team averages 115.4 points per 100 possessions and wins its minutes by 1.9 points per 100. With him off the court, the team averages just 111.7. That’s the difference between the eighth-best offense in the league and the 20th-best offense. And then when the team plays the dual-big starters with Ware and Bam Adebayo, things get even better. The team averages 116.8 points per 100 and only gives up 110.6. Even more than just Ware’s game, it’s helped unlock Adebayo, who was in the midst of a down offensive season. In the minutes that Ware and Adebayo play together, per PBP Stats, Adebayo shoots 62.4 percent from 2-point range. In the minutes when Ware is off the court, Adebayo shoots just 52 percent inside the arc. His true-shooting percentage with Ware skyrockets to 67.4 versus 53.5 without him on the court. He’s given Adebayo some more space to operate, and it’s helping the Heat significantly.

Ware still has a long way to go on defense. He blocks shots but consistently looks tentative in his rotations. He moves exceptionally well but is quite skinny and can get moved around a bit too easily. He’s so big that when he makes a confident choice, he can go get the ball and contest with ease. But it’s clear he’s still working on that piece of his game. The same can be said of his gap control in ball screens. It’s going to take some time for him to work through these issues.

However, Ware being able to get on the court successfully now is a big deal because it allows him to get those reps. It gives him a chance to work through his issues and figure out his game on the defensive end. He looks every bit like a starting center of the future. Whether he can become an All-Star and truly break through will depend on how he starts to see the floor as a passer and how the defense develops. But his ability to finish plays at an elite level gives him a serious backdrop to fall into and a baseline to build his game.

Other notes

• The player who might be able to break into the Castle-Wells race for Rooke of the Year is No. 1 pick Zaccharie Risacher, who has come on strong for the Hawks of late. Over his last 17 games, Risacher is averaging 13.8 points and 3.6 rebounds while shooting 52 percent from the field and 48 percent from 3. He’s also a sharp team defender and generally makes great decisions as a cutter. Have you ever watched one of those players who just feels like he knows exactly what he’s doing at all times on the court? That’s Risacher. He’s going to be an awesome starter for the Hawks moving forward, but I have him a tier below that top duo right now.

• Tristan da Silva continues to be the unsung hero for the Orlando Magic this year, eating up a ton of minutes for a team that gets injured game after game. He’s played the fourth-most minutes on the team and does his job night in, night out. He’s a timely cutter, sharp decision-maker and keeps the offense moving when the ball swings to him. You’d like to see him make more than 34 percent of his 3s, and his strength is not quite up to NBA standards yet. But he looks like a 10-year vet out there and will be a rotation player in the league for a long time.

• Trying to rank the Washington Wizards’ rookies is a fool’s errand. They’ve all gone through positive stretches and had bouts of crippling inefficiency. Let’s start with Alex Sarr, who is in the midst of one of those struggles. Sarr is shooting just 39.5 percent from the field as a player who sees a majority of time at the center position. As we broke down in the last rookie rankings, that finishing ability is going to be his key. He’s made just 40 percent of his layups in half-court settings, a remarkably, almost impossibly low number that showcases how big of an issue his touch through contact has been this year.

Sarr desperately needs to put on weight to maintain that balance more consistently through bumps. Right now, he’s essentially a center who does a lot of non-center things at a high level but doesn’t do the non-negotiables the position requires well enough yet. This season was always going to be a developmental one, so I don’t take it as a sign for his career long-term. And I still have him tops among this Wizards group largely because I think the flashes we’ve seen have been better from him than the other two rookies. Still, there are warning signs here that can’t be ignored at this point either. He’s going to have to work through his flaws this offseason, and at the top of that list is getting stronger without taking away the mobility that makes him special.

Bub Carrington has shown some positive signs lately for the Wizards. (Scott Kinser / Imagn Images)

Bub Carrington is right below him and might pass him in the next iteration if he continues playing the way he has. Over his last 13 games, Carrington is averaging 12 points, 4.5 rebounds and five assists versus only 1.9 turnovers while shooting 45 percent from the field, 40 percent from 3 and 89 percent from the line. The defense has a long way to go, but his ability to run the show next to Jordan Poole has been fun to watch.

The other rookie here is Kyshawn George, and he’s arguably been the best of the bunch over the last 15 games. His defensive playmaking and shot-making from 3 has been huge for a feisty Wizards team that has won four of its last seven. Still, even in this, the best stretch of his season, he’s shooting under 40 percent from the field because he doesn’t have any answers when going inside the arc. His instincts on defense are top-notch, but he just doesn’t have a ton of vertical pop or footwork yet on his drives to be able to finish. The jury remains out on George, but the signs lately on offense have been positive enough that he can work through these issues and stay on the court.

• We can end here on the Utah Jazz rookies, who have been enjoyable in recent weeks. Kyle Filipowski is probably the most underrated rookie of this cycle, a big man at nearly 7-foot tall who can dribble, pass and shoot. His ability to efficiently make plays has been a godsend for the Jazz, and he at least plays hard on defense even if it’s not always pretty athletically. Over Filipowski’s last 11 games, only Castle has been better among this class. He’s averaging 16.5 points, 7.6 rebounds and 2.6 assists while shooting 57 percent from the field, 51 percent from 3 and 64 percent from the line. Given his current trajectory, I would bet Filipowski ends the season in the top 10 and makes an All-Rookie team.

Isaiah Collier, on the other hand, is still working through some issues. The good news is that he’s already leading all rookies in assists. Since Jan. 7, he’s averaging 8.5 assists per game with 11.3 points. He’s a terrific drive-and-dish player. However, he doesn’t really have an effective way to score right now, and he turns it over nearly four times per game even in that 30-game run. That was essentially the scouting report on Collier coming out of USC, too, as he’s a powerful bowling ball with a tight handle, but he doesn’t shoot it well enough and might not be vertical enough as an athlete to live in the paint as a scorer. Still, these are positive signs, and at the very least Collier is an NBA player moving forward. That’s a win for Utah at No. 29 in last year’s draft, and I like that they’ve moved Collier ahead of Keyonte George in the rotation as a starter.

GO DEEPER

Isaiah Collier is living up to his pedigree — and challenging a John Stockton record

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(Illustration: Dan Goldfarb / The Athletic; Emilee Chinn, Grant Burke / NBAE via Getty Images; Melissa Tamez / Icon Sportswire / Getty Images)