Who Has Had the Better 2014-15 Season: NBA Rookies or Sophomores?
As the 2014-15 NBA season winds to a close, we've seen enough of the league's two youngest classes to determine which group, rookies or sophomores, has performed better.
The 2013 draft class was widely (and justifiably) maligned. It was the first since 2000 to perform, on balance, below replacement level, according to ESPN.com's Kevin Pelton. In other words, the league as a whole would have been better off last year without those rookies.
Conversely, the class of 2014 came in heavily hyped. It hasn't quite delivered on those historic expectations, leading to a surprising conclusion: The sophomores, once dismissed as disappointments, have smashed the rookies this season.
Just One Game
The BBVA Compass Rising Stars Challenge may not provide the best controlled environment for judging rookie and sophomore talent, but All-Star Weekend's annual rookie-sophomore game offered a rare chance to see teams comprised entirely of members from the last two draft classes.
This year, the league didn't break squads up according to experience, opting instead to pit the USA against the World. Not ideal for our purposes, but it was still easy enough to spot individual talent.
Rookie Andrew Wiggins tied for the game high with 22 points (first-year guard Zach LaVine and sophomore Victor Oladipo were right there with him) and took home the MVP. By that measure, Wiggins was the game's top player, and it's admittedly hard to come up with a strong case against him.
Oladipo needed 21 shots to score as many points as Wiggins did in 11.
However, the game's other standouts were mostly sophomores. Rudy Gobert had 18 points and 12 rebounds in just 20 minutes. Dennis Schroder had a game-high nine assists, we already touched on Oladipo's scoring, and Giannis Antetokounmpo probably had the best all-around effort of anyone: 12 points, 10 rebounds, five assists, four steals and two blocks.
Though it was just one game and though a rookie took home top honors, it's hard to view the Rising Stars Challenge as anything but a coming-out party for this season's most promising sophomores.
The Whole Thing
The sophomores stomp the rookies in full-season stats.
Check out what the list of win-share leaders among rookies and sophomores looks like through games played March 28 this season, per Basketball-Reference.com:
| Rudy Gobert | UTA | 8.0 | Soph |
| Giannis Antetokounmpo | MIL | 5.7 | Soph |
| Gorgui Dieng | MIN | 5.2 | Soph |
| Nikola Mirotic | CHI | 5.1 | Rookie |
| Mason Plumlee | BKN | 4.6 | Soph |
| Cody Zeller | CHA | 3.9 | Soph |
| Nerlens Noel | PHI | 3.8 | Rookie |
| Steven Adams | OKC | 3.7 | Soph |
| Alex Len | PHX | 3.5 | Soph |
| Robert Covington | PHI | 3.4 | Soph |
What you've got there is eight sophomores and just two rookies. Nikola Mirotic (who is actually a member of the 2011 draft class) and Nerlens Noel (who is only a rookie this year on a technicality after sitting out all of last season with a torn ACL) are the only first-year players to crack the top 10.
To be fair to the rookies, it's probably not reasonable to expect them to make contributions on par with the sophomores. Part of being a rookie means riding the bench and taking lumps until the game slows down. Sophomores have already suffered through many of their growing pains.
Still, considering the respective reputations of the two classes, it's somewhat jarring to see the sophomores performing substantially better.
The story is largely the same when we group the top 10 rookies and sophomores by player efficiency rating:
| Rudy Gobert | UTA | 21.6 | Soph |
| Mason Plumlee | BKN | 18.5 | Soph |
| Nikola Mirotic | CHI | 18.0 | Rookie |
| Gorgui Dieng | MIN | 17.3 | Soph |
| Victor Oladipo | ORL | 16.4 | Soph |
| Dennis Schroder | ATL | 15.6 | Soph |
| Jusuf Nurkic | DEN | 15.5 | Rookie |
| Giannis Antetokounmpo | MIL | 15.3 | Soph |
| Kelly Olynyk | BOS | 15.1 | Soph |
| Nerlens Noel | PHI | 15.0 | Rookie |
Part of the problem with individual numbers for players like these, most of whom were selected high in the draft and wound up on rebuilding teams, is that statistics are generally hard to judge when they arise out of low-stakes situations.
Can we really draw worthwhile conclusions about Wiggins' scoring numbers when they're coming in meaningless Minnesota Timberwolves games?
If we focus on rookies and sophomores playing big roles for teams that are actually involved in the playoff hunt, we once again see that the sophs are making the bigger impact. Mirotic has been crucial in keeping the Chicago Bulls offense afloat lately, but he's the only first-year player making a real difference for a postseason threat.
Otherwise, we've got Schroder, Antetokounmpo and Steven Adams doing the most meaningful work for playoff-bound teams, and they're all sophomores.
Score another for the class of 2013.
Star Potential
Wiggins has had impressive eye-test moments this season—enough of them to at least raise the possibility of legitimate stardom in his future.
Unfortunately, his numbers don't match his highlights. No fewer than six rookies from last year's class posted PERs higher than Wiggins' 13.5 in their first season. Wiggins is just one example, but if a half-dozen rookies from the dismissed 2013 draft were more productive (even if only by one imperfect catch-all metric), that's reason enough to pump the brakes on the superstardom express.
Intriguingly, Noel has looked better than Wiggins of late, averaging 14.4 points and 11 rebounds per game on 52.4 percent shooting in March. It seems Noel is primed to become a defensive difference-maker at worst.
At best, who knows? We could be looking at a prime version of Larry Sanders with superior quickness and offensive instincts. That's a franchise cornerstone, people.
Philadelphia 76ers head coach Brett Brown told reporters, per Max Rappaport of Sixers.com:
"Listen, people have to start really talking about him for rookie of the year. You don't just repetitively bang out these types of performances and produce the numbers he is producing. He is a complete game-changer. He is a complete defensive presence when he is lurking to block shots...He keeps moving up the food chain and heading in the direction that we are all so thrilled about.
"
After Brown made those comments, Noel went out and hung a career-high 30 points on the Los Angeles Clippers on March 27.
Of course, it's hard to ignore the fact that even among rangy defensive dynamos, Gobert, a sophomore, looks even more like a star.
Forget limiting the discussion to rookies and sophomores; Gobert is arguably the best rim protector in the league, period. He has held opponents to 39.4 percent shooting at the rim this season, according to NBA.com, which is the stingiest figure in the league among defenders who've faced at least seven close-range shots per game.
And he's the only guy to make the indomitable Russell Westbrook think twice, according to Royce Young of ESPN.com:
It's only fair to note the rookies don't have Jabari Parker or Joel Embiid, two potential stars, to bolster the case for their class. Both have lost their seasons to injury, as has Los Angeles Lakers lottery pick Julius Randle, and it's not hard to imagine a scenario in which at least one of those guys shows up in multiple All-Star Games down the line.
But the sophomores have more potential-oozing talent, led by Antetokounmpo, Oladipo and Schroder, all of whom have made major strides and are still just scratching the surface of their skill sets—Antetokounmpo in particular.
We can't close the book on this discussion yet, and it'll take years to judge the long-term value of both groups. But for now, we need to at least agree to dismiss the idea that the 2013 class was weak.
Based on how things have gone this season, it looks a whole lot stronger than the supposedly stouter rookie crop of 2014.
