ESPN Ranks Zion Top 50

[Pelicanidae]

Will Zion be a top-50 player his rookie year? Our #NBARank experts think so.

Players 50-31: https://t.co/yVkZRwoNkg pic.twitter.com/YetdWbYXfo

— ESPN (@espn) September 24, 2019

We're at that time of the year where all the of news outlets are rolling out their top 100 players lists. Some places, like SI, simply don't include rookies in their evaluations, and as a result people like Zion are left off.

ESPN, however, has included rookies, and they've made an interesting projection for the year: Zion as a top 50 player, falling at 42nd in the NBA.

This ranking places him above noted veterans such as Klay Thompson, Demar Derozan, and Kevin Love. Only one spot behind Lamarcus Aldridge and 2 spots behind 2018 All-Star, Nikola Vucevic.

Here's their paragraph on him: ''Our NBArank panel placed the No. 1 overall pick of this year's draft 42nd, the highest ever for a first-year player in the nine seasons we've been doing NBArank. That's understandable given that Zion is one of the most promising players to enter the league in recent memory.''

What do you think? Is this too high, in your view? Maybe you think Zion's going to hit the league like a freight train and you don't think it's high enough. Personally, I think that while this is a generous estimation, it's also not an impossible one. I would not be surprised if, by the end of the year, Zion has the advanced stats and the impact metrics of a top 50 player, even if his counting stats aren't quite as shiny as someone like Derozan's.

To me, this just tells me that the media is finally catching up to something that a lot of people have known for a long time. Rookies can be good at basketball. Any doubt that surrounded that was destroyed when, last season, Trae Young and Luka Doncic both had monstrous rookie years, providing huge value to their teams and undeniably carving out spots as high calibre players in their first years.

Other Pelicans on ESPN's list:

Derrick Favors: #96 (too low)
JJ Redick: #73
Lonzo Ball: #68
Ingram: #56 (too high)
Jrue: #31 (way too low)

[Pelicanidae]

Seen a few things about Zion recently. People have been saying on twitter that there's no way he has impressive counting stats, because we already have good players on our team, and that it would be shocking if a rookie had the kind of impact required to be a top 50 guy in his first year.

Just wanna run through a couple of recent rookie seasons.

Luka Doncic: 21/8/6 on 43/33/71 splits. 19.6 PER, 0.101 WS/48, 4.1 BPM, 3.6 VORP, 54.5% TS. 1.4 PIPM (67th in the NBA). 1.29 RPM (86th in NBA).
Trae Young: 19/4/8 on 42/32/83 splits. 17.0 PER, 0.062 WS/48, -1.1 BPM, 0.6 VORP, 53.9 TS%, -0.8 PIPM, -2.74 RPM.
Ben Simmons: 16/8/8 on 54/0/56 splits. 20.0 PER, 0.162 WS/48, 4.6 BPM, 4.6 VORP, 55.7 TS%. 2.86 PIPM (25th in the NBA), 2.89 RPM (35th in NBA).

Now, those are obviously very good rookie years. That's 2 ROTY winners, and one runner up.

But is it so insane to imagine that Zion, who is a better prospect coming out of college than any of them, could put up similarly good numbers?

Would it be unbelievable if Zion came out and averaged something like, 18/9/3 on 50/33/60 splits? Would a PER of around 18 be surprising to anyone? If he put up a PIPM around 2, why would that be shocking to anyone? This guy is good at basketball.

[13 - 3]

I would say that seems like a safe spot for him right now considering he has yet to play in a game. He will steadily rise up.

[Pelicanidae]

I would say that seems like a safe spot for him right now considering he has yet to play in a game. He will steadily rise up.

No, I totally agree. I think 42 is a fine prediction. He could outperform if, sure, but I wouldn't get on him being 30th or something. Similarly, he could underperform that standard: even a good rookie season could see him being more like 60th.

The issue is that I've seen a few people speculating that he shouldn't be ranked top 100 at all. Which I think is silly.

[Pelicanidae]

Players ranked higher than Jrue in this year's ESPN top 100:

Devin Booker #30
Tobias Harris #29
Trae Young #28
Jamal Murray #27
D'Angelo Russell #26
De'Aaron Fox #25
Mike Conley #24
Donovan Mitchell #20
Bradley Beal #19
Kemba Walker #17
Luka Doncic #16
CJ McCollum #13
Kyrie Irving #11

Literally none of those players are better than Jrue. You have kind of an argument for one or two of them (Kyrie, Beal, Conley) even if I would rank Jrue higher.

But CJ McCollum? D. Russell? Devin Booker? Jesus Christ, what a mess.