Hypothetical Power Rankings: 2016-17 NBA rookies vs. history

I went bananas last week, comparing Joel Embiid’s rookie-year exploits to first-ballot Hall of Famers from all generations. The fact that Embiid does just about everything — on and off the court — with his signature, smooth ease covers up one of the truths about being a rookie: It’s damn hard.

Embiid is the only rookie this year scoring in double-digits per game (with teammate Dario Saric one good night away from crossing the threshold). The class leader in total minutes played is Brandon Ingram at 1,414 — or 66th overall in the league. The class leader in assists per game is second-rounder Malcolm Brogdon (more on him later) at 4.1 — or fewer per night than DeMarcus Cousins, center.

So looking outside of Embiid, the historical comparisons that this year’s rookies are drawing don’t impress quite as much. Using Basketball-Reference’s Play Index to compare this year’s rookies to other rookies in league history, here are the least- to most-flattering comparisons I found.

6. Brandon Ingram is like Ben McLemore and Adam Morrison = heavy minutes + low PER

Only a handful of rookies each year are given the — pretty large — responsibility of playing at least 25 minutes a night. Something has to be going right in order to get that much run — no doubt at the cost of some veteran’s own minutes.

So it’s a unique situation, then, to be given that much playing time while also delivering so little as far as just about every advanced metric goes. Ingram joins McLemore and Morrison as the only rookies ever to play so much while being unable to inch their PER above 8.0, which was about where Kendrick Perkins was at when he reached the bitter end. It’s not just Basketball-Reference’s stats, either. ESPN rates Ingram 441st out of this year’s 441 NBA players in Real Plus-Minus.

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Ingram is younger than either McLemore or Morrison was during their rookie seasons — meaning that he has, theoretically, more time to develop into a positive contributor — but the warning is still a dire one. Answering those pre-draft calls for Ingram to add weight to his preposterously skinny frame probably wouldn’t be a bad start.

5. Dragan Bender is like Charles Jones = 3-point accuracy + free throw inaccuracy

I hadn’t heard of Charles Jones before, but my what a career. At Long Island University in the late 90s, Jones led the nation by averaging over 30 points per game — an accomplishment that no other college player has managed since. After going undrafted in 1998 and then thumb-twiddling through the lockout, Jones briefly played with the 13-37 Chicago Bulls, who cratered following the second of Michael Jordan’s three retirements. Then, in 1999-00, Jones landed with the Los Angeles Clippers, who went 15-67 while being led by Lamar Odom and Michael Olowokandi. And that is the end of Jones’ NBA career.

A bizarre thing happened while Jones was with the Bulls: He shot 31.1 percent on 3-pointers that year, which was actually better than teammate Toni Kukoc’s 28.5 percent the same season. Also, Jones made a meager 50 percent of his free throws. No other rookie has managed to combo up that palatable 3-point percentage with such a devastating free-throw percentage until Bender. This year, Bender is shooting 32.1 percent on 3-point shots, plus a frighteningly similar 37.5 percent on free throws.

And perhaps even more concerning than that: Bender has just eight shots from the charity stripe in 481 total minutes. That’s very near the lowest rate of free throws per minute for any 7-footer in any season, ever — rookie or no.

4. Buddy Hield is like Kyle Korver = 3-point frequency + low offensive rating

Going back to the pre-draft process last season, prospect blogger Dean Demakis has been unfailingly critical of Hield’s game, proposing that Hield’s elite 3-point shooting does not make up for an otherwise inefficient game:

That’s why I was surprised to find out that the only rookie to shoot 3-pointers as often as Hield (at least 10 attempts per 100 possessions) while being generally inefficient (offensive rating under 100) is Korver, a one-time All-Star. It should be noted, though, that this was a much different Kyle Korver. As a second-round pick who managed to shoot just 28.3 percent on 2-point attempts in his rookie season, there wasn’t much of a guarantee that Korver would be around for Season No. 2.

In Korver’s 13 seasons since that 2003-04 rookie campaign, Korver has never dipped below 42 percent on 2-point shots, including getting up above 50 percent on a few seasons. In order to be as valuable as Korver is, Hield will need to improve that 3-point accuracy (40.6 percent), double his frequency of getting to the free throw line and dramatically improve that defense.

Oh, and Hield’s 3-point accuracy is about six points behind Korver’s career mark as well — 36.6 percent to 42.9 percent. It’s a lot to work on, but Korver is proof that it’s possible to accomplish them all.

3. Ivica Zubac is like Yao Ming = 7-footer + elite free throw accuracy + virtually no 3-point attempts

To add a pebble to the mountain of modern 3-pointer fun facts: 7-footers have made 660 3-pointers so far this season. For the first 20 years of the 3-point line’s existence — that’s going from pre-Boston Celtics Robert Parish all the way up to Dirk Nowitzki — 7-footers combined for 678 makes from deep.

We know the formula now, even with veteran big men: Any center with a remotely deft shooting touch is going to be spending time on the perimeter. Los Angeles Lakers second-rounder — and unlikely new rotation player — Zubac stands, so far, as an exception. Zubac has sunk his free throws everywhere he’s been. He’s at 86.7 percent in the NBA this year, 82.9 percent in 13 NBADL games and was at 76.5 percent between Serbia and Croatia last season.

This alone makes Zubac something of an outlier since he is only one of nine 7-footers in history to shoot better than 80 percent from the line (eight of them are active). Among them, Yao Ming (10 career 3-point attempts) is the only big man who didn’t add the deep ball to his repertoire.

Zubac might not be able to be compared to Yao for long, though. In the NBADL, Zubac sank a respectable 4-of-11 3-pointers.

2. Davis Bertans and Juan Hernangomez are like Matt Bonner = 3-point frequency + elite 3-point accuracy + elite offensive rating

Between the New Balance shoes, red hair and cozy New England stylings, Bonner had long held the title of “NBA player who most people think they could beat in a pickup game.” Beneath all the nyucks, though, was one of the game’s most efficient-ever players. For one, Bonner just edged out Bruce Bowen as the player with the most career games played for Gregg Popovich outside of the Big Three of Tim Duncan, Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili.

Bonner also finishes among Hall of Famers in a ton of rate stats when you look at all veterans, which I’m calling any player with at least 500 career games. Since these stats began being tracked in 1979-80: 11th overall in 3-point accuracy, tied for sixth (with Charles Barkley) in offensive rating and has the second-lowest turnover percentage. That hyper-efficiency during Bonner’s two years in Toronto with teams that were not quite San Antonio Spurs-style juggernauts.

It feels like the opposite of a coincidence that one of this year’s two similarly efficient rookies is already a Spur — the arrival of Bertans could very well have been the thing that bumped Bonner into retirement. With Hernangomez, the Denver Nuggets look like they’ve continued their years-long dominance in drafting underrated international prospects. Like Bonner, neither Bertans nor Hernangomez play many minutes, but their minutes are very, very good.

1. Malcolm Brogdon is like Deron Williams = heavy minutes + frequent assists + good assist/turnover ratio + elite 3-point accuracy

Among other things that the recent-history New Jersey/Brooklyn Nets have been responsible for destroying, I think we’ve all forgotten that Deron Williams was, for real, on a Hall of Fame track. Williams had the misfortune of being selected right in front of a bona fide all-time great, but that distinction was not clear until well into the third, fourth chapters of their careers. Through Williams’ first five seasons, he put up 40.0 Win Shares — comparable to the enshrined Kevin McHale (41.3), Clyde Drexler (40.1), Patrick Ewing (39.1) or Allen Iverson (39.0).

In that context, it’s pretty astonishing that second-rounder Brogdon is keeping pace with what Williams did. A handful of rookies each year manage to have an assist-to-turnover ratio better than 2.0, as Brogdon is doing now — that’s not what’s making Brogdon’s season unique. Dozens of rookies throughout time have even managed to maintain that ball control while besting Brogdon’s assist percentage of 24.1 percent. But only Williams can match Brogdon’s current workload as a 3-point shooter, connecting on at least 40 percent of attempts while launching at least two deep balls per game. (Bizarrely, Williams’ 41.6 percent 3-point shooting in his rookie season is still a career-high and well above his current 35.7 percent career average.)

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As potent of an offensive combination as this seems, it still didn’t add up to an overly stellar rookie season for Williams, who trailed fellow rookies like Luther Head and Ryan Gomes in Win Shares at the end of his rookie year. While Brogdon’s advanced stats aren’t exactly beautiful either, this is some pretty remarkable value from a second-round pick.

All statistics as of games played on February 1.