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Nylon Calculus: Was 2018 the best rookie class since the merger?

By Ben Taylor

HOUSTON, TX - MAY 4: Donovan Mitchell #45 of the Utah Jazz looks on during the game against the Houston Rockets during Game Three of the Western Conference Semifinals of the 2018 NBA Playoffs on May 4, 2018 at the Vivint Smart Home Arena Salt Lake City, Utah. NOTE TO USER: User expressly acknowledges and agrees that, by downloading and or using this photograph, User is consenting to the terms and conditions of the Getty Images License Agreement. Mandatory Copyright Notice: Copyright 2018 NBAE (Photo by Andrew D. Bernstein/NBAE via Getty Images)
HOUSTON, TX - MAY 4: Donovan Mitchell #45 of the Utah Jazz looks on during the game against the Houston Rockets during Game Three of the Western Conference Semifinals of the 2018 NBA Playoffs on May 4, 2018 at the Vivint Smart Home Arena Salt Lake City, Utah. NOTE TO USER: User expressly acknowledges and agrees that, by downloading and or using this photograph, User is consenting to the terms and conditions of the Getty Images License Agreement. Mandatory Copyright Notice: Copyright 2018 NBAE (Photo by Andrew D. Bernstein/NBAE via Getty Images) /
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We often think of rookie classes retrospectively. The 1984 and 2003 drafts stand out because they were littered with Hall of Fame careers. But based on the single-season performance of rookies alone — which means this year’s group includes the redshirted top pick from 2016, Ben Simmons — we may have just seen the best rookie class in decades.

First, some basics. Logging minutes is a sign of quality, and 31 rookies played at least 500 minutes this year, the most since the ABA-NBA merger in 1977. The 1982 class (from the 1981 draft) saw 30 rookies eclipse 500 minutes, but no other post-merger class even had 25 rookies cross that threshold. This year’s herd played over 40,000 combined minutes, the second-most since 1982, and nearly double the 24,381 minutes from the 2017 rookies.

To gauge how impactful those minutes were, lets turn to two historical all-in-one metrics. The first is VORP (an extension of Daniel Myer’s box plus-minus), which allows us to look all the way back to 1974 on a relatively even field. The second is my own metric, Augmented Plus-Minus (AuPM), which uses BPM to augment plus-minus data that is available since 1994. What do these numbers have to say about the production of each rookie class?

There were 23 rookies with a positive VORP last year, the most since that 1982 class, led by All-Stars Buck Williams and Kelly Tripucka. The post-merger average for positive-VORP players is 15.5 per class, and only four cohorts have ever had 18 players with a positive VORP. So three-quarters of the rookies logging relevant minutes this year were solid contributors by this metric.

A VORP of +1 falls in the top quartile of the league, and the 2018 class featured seven rookies above that mark — the second-most since 1993. A VORP of +2 lands in (roughly) the top decile of players, and two rookies this year crossed that mark (Donovan Mitchell and Simmons, who posted the eighth-best rookie VORP on record at +4.6). Here’s how the classes stack up visually by VORP:

VORP can be offensively slanted though — it’s defensive estimates are fuzzy, sometimes overstating players in marginal situations. AuPM improves on this by incorporating plus-minus data, and according to AuPM, this year’s rookies were the best crop in the 25-year history of the metric.

While 2005 produced more positive-AuPM players, no recent class has come close to the high-end performance of the 2018 rookies. Only two classes yielded at least four players with a per-game AuPM of at least 1 (1994 and 1998), yet this year’s group generated a whopping seven +1 players and a record three +2 players in Simmons, Mitchell and Jayson Tatum. (An AuPM of +2 is roughly All-Star level.) To put that into perspective, only four rookies in the previous 18 years registered an AuPM of at least +2 per game, and one of them was 27-year old Jamario Moon. (Joel Embiid, Andrei Kirilenko and Shane Battier were the others.) Notice the top-heavy nature of this year’s freshmen:

The 2018 class checks all the boxes: An abundance of court time, a number of viable contributors and a triumvirate of high-end players. By these measurements, it’s certainly the best performing rookie class of the last decade and likely the best group of first-year players of the last quarter century. Only a thin argument can be mustered up for 1998 or 1994 by incorporating the “top-heaviness” of those years. Here’s a comparison of the 10-best VORP and AuPM scores from each post-merger rookie class:

The 1998 class was top-heavy, led by Tim Duncan’s rookie-best AuPM of 4.6 per game, an MVP-level result. Otherwise, that group lacks the high-end quality of this year’s rookies. The 1994 class (Chris Webber, Penny Hardaway, PJ Brown) stacks up competitively at the top too, but both classes lack the depth of this year’s group.

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Going all the way back to the merger, only the surprisingly deep 1982 class, the top-heavy 1980 crop (Larry Bird and Magic Johnson) and the legendary 1985 group (Michael Jordan, Hakeem Olajuwon, Charles Barkley) can challenge the 2018 class. Meaning we just witnessed the best rookie crop in two decades, and one of the best of the last 40 years. Only time will tell if that translates into Hall-of-Fame careers.

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