NBA Rookie Rankings: Deandre Ayton is closing in on Luka Doncic

There were legitimate questions about how Deandre Ayton might fit into the modern NBA game, but he’s answered all of them on the offensive end.

The NBA season is starting to hit its stride and rookies are starting to get even more minutes for a lot of teams. The group at the top remains the same though. The early returns from this year’s lottery is that a lot of bad teams made good selections about who can help them reverse their fortunes.

The real challenge in evaluating this year’s crop is how much we should value a player’s contribution to winning basketball. High lottery picks are, predictably, struggling to help their team win games. That doesn’t mean the individual players aren’t performing at a high level.

Still, there are a few guys on this list that will get a bump for their team’s relatively hot start. Think of it as a tiebreaker in close situations. Without further delay, let’s get right to a new guy who cracks our top five this week.

5. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander

The Clippers are off to a decent 4-3 start and Gilgeous-Alexander has certainly been a positive for Doc Rivers’ team. In this small sample size, he’s doing something really rare for a rookie. He’s playing point guard and helping his team win at the same time.

One of the reasons he’s been able to be a positive force on the floor is that he’s working hard to fit into the Clippers’ system. He’s not stepping out on his own and trying to do too much. His usage percentage of just 14.6 percent through seven games backs that up.

That’s allowed him to focus more of his energy on distributing the ball and playing defense. He’s don both of those things at a relatively high level for a rookie so far. Specifically, he uses his size and length to get into good positions on both ends of the floor. At some point, his lack of a jump shot is going to catch up to him, but he’s been able to work around it so far. Credit the former Wildcat for making a smooth transition to the NBA.