NBA Rookie Rankings: Who is the best playmaker?

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The 2018 NBA Draft wasn’t full of great talent at the point guard position, but these five guys have the chance to emerge as top-notch playmakers.

We’re taking a little different tactic with this week’s edition of our Rookie Rankings. Instead of evaluating which five players are having the best season to date, we’re going to identify the class’ top five playmakers. The players we discuss this week aren’t necessarily the best rookies in the class, but they are guys who can really create for others.

We went into this process with a willingness to look at players at any potential position. Not surprisingly, the five players we zeroed in on all happen to play point guard on offense. That wasn’t an intentional choice on our part, but it’s not a surprising result. After all, point guards tend to get the most chances to create for others.

We’ll start our piece by looking at a player who isn’t living up to his draft hype, but is showing some signs of becoming an adequate NBA playmaker.

5. Collin Sexton

Sexton is taking a lot of criticism for his start to the season. In fairness to the former Alabama star, he’s been put in a really difficult position. Trying to be the lead dog as a rookie is hard for anyone. Trying to do it for a team that lost LeBron James in the offseason is virtually impossible.

When you watch him play, it’s clear he has the ability to be an above average playmaker. He’s far from that level right now though. His assist percentage of just 13.6 shows that he’s not a great distributor at the moment. Sexton has the athleticism required to get to the rim, but he needs to learn to throttle down and kick the ball out more frequently.

The bottom line here is that Cavaliers fans need to be much more patient with Sexton. He is far from a perfect prospect, but the organization has put him in a really difficult spot. Until he is surrounded by a competent supporting cast, he deserves the benefit of the doubt.

With all that being said, Sexton deserves credit for playing hard through tough circumstances. That, combined with the amount of time he spends on the ball is enough to land him at the No. 5 spot on this list.

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