2023 NBA Rookie of the Year Rankings: Who Will Challenge Paolo Banchero?
The (super) early returns on the 2022-23 NBA rookie class are wildly encouraging.
The No. 1 pick, Paolo Banchero, already looks like the part of a franchise face, but he's not the only one flashing star-level skills.
By utilizing everything from the eye test to analytical measures, let's rank the top Rookie of the Year candidates through the first three weeks.
10-6: LaRavia, Duren, Kessler, Eason, Smith
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10. Jake LaRavia, Memphis Grizzlies
You can find bigger numbers elsewhere, but you won't find many cleaner ones. The sample size is obviously small, but the 6'8" sharpshooter is still sporting a pristine 50/54.2/100 shooting slash and giving good minutes to a win-now Grizzlies group.
9. Jalen Duren, Detroit Pistons
The 6'10", 250-pound rim-runner has enjoyed a smooth transition to the league with aerial activity and a boatload of offensive rebounds (3.0 per game, 15th-most overall).
8. Walker Kessler, Utah Jazz
Walker Kessler paces all rookies in rejections (1.6 per game) and all rookie rotation players in field-goal shooting (69 percent). More impressively, he's made the surprisingly successful Jazz 3.2 points better per 100 possessions than they've played without him.
7. Tari Eason, Houston Rockets
Tari Eason's effort and activity would get more attention on a winning team, but he's still helping a young Houston squad along with tenacious defense and a nose for the glass. The Rockets have the Association's third-worst point differential at minus-83, but they're a plus-2 across his 196 minutes.
6. Jabari Smith Jr. Houston Rockets
Jabari Smith Jr.'s 30.3 field-goal percentage is borderline unforgivable, but you have to cut him some slack for being 19 years old and playing almost exclusively alongside equally unproven players. Quantity still counts for something, and Smith has plenty of that, as just the fifth rookie to tally 100 points, 50 rebounds, 10 threes and 10 blocks through his first 10 outings.
5. Shaedon Sharpe, Portland Trail Blazers
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Shaedon Sharpe was supposed to be a wild card in this draft after never suiting up at Kentucky and instead spending his one-and-done Wildcats tenure in draft-preparation mode. On the surface, that made him a curious selection of the Trail Blazers, who very much needed to turn things around in an instant to maximize the remainder of Damian Lillard's prime.
Turns out, Sharpe was more than ready for the assignment.
He popped for a dozen points in 16 minutes in his debut and has kept giving the Blazers buckets in bursts. He already has six double-digit scoring efforts, even though he has logged fewer than 17 minutes in half of his 10 outings. Shooting 48.6 percent from the field and a blistering 47.6 percent from distance can have that effect.
He's an electric athlete, and he's making significant contributions (including four starts) for a team seeded third in the Western Conference. So, combine his production with his easy-on-the-eyes highlights and tack on the added boost of helping out a contender as a teenager, and you might have the ingredients for an award-winning recipe.
4. Jaden Ivey, Detroit Pistons
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Ivey hit the ground sprinting in the Motor City, and he hasn't slowed down since.
He dropped an efficient 19 points in his debut, dished nine assists in his second career contest and corralled 10 rebounds his third time out. He's had multiple steals in half of his 10 games and even had a three-block performance, in case his stat sheet wasn't already stuffed enough.
His athleticism jumps off the screen, but he also understands how to lead an NBA offense in the half-court. His efficiency isn't great (43.8 percent shooting, 31.1 percent from three), but he's doing a lot of heavy lifting for a young Pistons team that is understandably prone to growing pains.
His counting categories are strong (15 points, 4.9 rebounds, 3.6 assists and 1.5 steals), but his shooting rates must rise for him to crack the top three.
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3. Keegan Murray, Sacramento Kings
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Murray has flashed Rookie of the Year potential at points with everything from his offensive precision, defensive versatility and wise-beyond-his-years maturity. He was just two games—and 35 points—into his career when De'Aaron Fox labeled him "the most efficient guy I've ever been around," via NBC Sports Bay Area's Tom Dierberger.
"You look over, he's shooting, he's not missing," Fox said on The Draymond Green Show podcast. "... He doesn't miss; he doesn't have any wasted motion. Everything he does is just efficient—defensively, offensively, grabbing rebounds, boxing out. He really just makes the game look easy."
In Murray's first four games, he looked like he would make a serious charge for ROY honors as he poured in 18.8 points per game on 53.8/41.9/85.7 shooting. His last four outings have been more of a slog (7.0 points on 31.4/25/50), which, for now, keeps him climbing any higher than No. 3.
Still, it's easy to grow infatuated with his talent, and opportunity clearly won't be an issue. The Kings gave him 33 minutes in his first NBA game, 38 minutes in his second and have started him in every contest since. When (not if) he snaps out of this mini-funk, he'll put pressure on the top two again.
2. Bennedict Mathurin, Indiana Pacers
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While the top-ranked rookie keeps trying to pull away from the pack, Mathurin is the lone freshman staying within striking distance.
He already looks like a scoring machine—as a 20-year-old who has yet to make his first NBA start. It wasn't until his 10th game that he failed to score in double figures; by that point, he'd already authored four 20-point outbursts, including a 32-point performance in which he powered the rebuilding Pacers past Kevin Durant and the Brooklyn Nets.
"A lot of younger players and rookies come into the league, and it takes them a second to get their bearings right. Since the first day of playing with him in pickup games in the summertime, I knew he was going to be ready," Pacers center Myles Turner told HoopsHype's Michael Scotto. "I think he's already great at getting downhill and a great scorer. As he learns the dynamics of the league, he's going to be an All-Star-level talent."
Mathurin's numbers are already among the best in this class. Among rookies, he ranks second in scoring (19.4), first in threes (2.5, on 40.3 percent shooting), fifth in assists (2.4) and 10th in rebounds (3.7). And again, he's not starting or logging 30 minutes a night yet.
Should the Pacers plunge further into their rebuild and ship off players like Turner and Buddy Hield, that would only free up more floor time and touches for Mathurin. He needs as many opportunities as he can get, though, to chase down the red-hot rookie atop these rankings.
1. Paolo Banchero, Orlando Magic
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Just like at the draft, Banchero gets the No. 1 spot. While that at least had some mystery about it, this is about as clear-cut as it gets.
His 23.5 points are 4.1 ahead of the next closest scorer (Mathurin) and 8.5 up on No. 3 (Ivey). Banchero also enjoys a healthy lead on the glass (8.3 rebounds to Duren's 6.4) and even shares top billing in assists (3.6, same as Ivey). Banchero's 8.3 free-throw attempts per game are more than twice as many as the third-ranked rookie (Ivey with 3.3) and rank 10th among all players.
Banchero is just on a different plane from his peers right now, both in production and role. He's the only freshman operating as a focal point, which surely helps his numbers, but he's also earning those chances with a solid 46.1-percent connection rate from the field and a way-above-average 19.2 player efficiency rating.
"(To be) that size and to be that height and that bulky, and essentially can do everything on the floor, he's only obviously going to continue to get better," Jayson Tatum said, per Rookie Wire's Cody Taylor.
Banchero's production is on par with some of the game's greats. If his current numbers hold, he'd be just the sixth rookie ever—and first in 50 years—to average 23 points, eight rebounds and three assists. He might run laps around his competition before this campaign closes.
Statistics courtesy of Basketball Reference and NBA.com and accurate through Tuesday.
Zach Buckley covers the NBA for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter, @ZachBuckleyNBA.
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