Power Ranking NBA Rookie Animal Noises

Just last week we saw the NBA rookies that were gathered at the NBA rookie photoshoot doing imitations of NBA stars such as Kobe Bryant, James Harden and Nick Young. As it turns out those player imitations weren’t the only impersinations that the rookies at the gathering showed off as a group of youngsters made whatever noise they believe their favorite animal makes.

(h/t to Slam for the find)

Of course the only proper way to react to the video is by power ranking the players based on the sounds they made, a task that actually turned out to be fairly easy. Before doing that though it needs to be acknowledged how poor a job the following rookies did at the task as Tyus Jones, RJ Hunter, Trey Lyles, Justin Anderson, Rashad Vaughn, D’Angelo Russell, Joseph Young, Jahlil Okafor and Devin Booker all failed to produce soundbite worth noises. Especially big thumbs down go to Booker and Hunter as Booker wanted no part of the question and gave a terrible answer and Hunter lied about knowing what noise a lion makes.

Anyway, on to the six players that produced something, in reverse order.

6. Delon Wright: Credit goes to Wright for making an effort and making a sound, but there were two problems here. First is that a duck is a fairly boring favorite animal, so Wright was starting behind the ball already. Second, while there was a bit of effort Wright just didn’t get into his call like most of the other rookies so he ends up last.

5. Emmanuel Mudiay: Mudiay ranks ahead of Wright purely because he picked a better animal. There was no commitment to this one at all either.

4.Cameron Payne: Payne actually did a pretty good job at making his sound, really getting into it and coming up with a bit of a growl. He stands head and shoulders above Mudiay and Wright, but it just didn’t stand up to the top three mostly due to creativity.

3. Josh Richardson: Honestly when Richardson said that his favorite animal was a giraffe, it seemed mostly like a way to get himself out of any silly questions like what sound it makes. Considering that giraffes really don’t make sounds, it would have been easy for Richardson to give nothing. Instead he got creative and produced a response which lands him in the top three.

2. Myles Turner: Turner got into the question, produced a great noise and seemed to enjoy it. An easy spot in the top two.

1. Bobby Portis: I’m going to be honest. Turner had the best noise. But Portis was second and he scares me so he lands on top. I just can’t shake the crazy eyes.