Kevin Pelton, ESPN Staff Writer
In an era in which most top prospects enter the NBA after spending just one year in college, there’s only a limited relationship between playing well as a rookie and long-term success. After all, the 2010-11 All-Rookie First Team included Landry Fields and Gary Neal, but not Eric Bledsoe, Derrick Favors, Greg Monroe or Paul George.
EDITOR’S PICKS
Elhassan: Scouting the most NBA-ready rookies
Karl-Anthony Towns will be a solid starter right away, while it might take longer for fellow rooks D’Angelo Russell and Emmanuel Mudiay, according to Amin Elhassan’s Rookie Readiness Scale.
Doolittle: Kentucky’s stretch of NBA dominance
Former Kentucky players like Anthony Davis and John Wall are projected by Bradford Doolittle to have the best collective season by a school’s alum in NBA history — even better than UCLA.
Doolittle: Most and least improved teams
Doc Rivers the GM helped Doc Rivers the coach with the additions of Paul Pierce and Lance Stephenson, while the Nets project to crash into the crop of the NBA’s worst teams.
As a result, most projections for draft picks wisely focus on production over several years rather than immediate results. But my WARP projections are built on translations that convert NCAA and international performance to its NBA equivalents, adjusted for a year of player development. Therefore, we can use them to project the players who will be most effective as rookies.
I’ve ranked players here based on the rookie version of the consensus projections that incorporate where a player was drafted along with their past performance, factoring in the opinions of NBA scouts. Players are ranked on their winning percentage, the per-minute version of my wins-above-replacement player stat akin to PER. Let’s take a look at the top 10.
1. Karl-Anthony Towns
Team: Minnesota Timberwolves
Pick: No. 1 overall
Win percentage: .514
Towns ranks just sixth going purely on statistical translations, but his status as the No. 1 overall pick lifts him to the top of the list. That’s reasonable, because even if he takes his lumps offensively while learning to play in the post, per Flip Saunders’ plan for his development, Towns will be a useful rebounder and defender from day one.