Jun 25, 2025; Brooklyn, NY, USA; Jeremiah Fears, Cooper Flagg, and Dylan Harper stand on stage earlier than the 2025 NBA Draft at Barclays Heart. Obligatory Credit score: Brad Penner-Imagn Photographs It’s fairly doable the general high quality of NBA rookies final season may need been the worst in NBA historical past.
Yeah, that’s saying lots. However have a look at the names of the blokes voted onto the All-Rookie first workforce:
Stephon Fort, Zaccharie Risacher, Jaylen Wells, Zach Edey, and Alex Sarr.
They’re as exhausting to spell as they’re to pronounce. And so they have been even more durable to observe.
Heck, even John Calipari wouldn’t recruit that fearless fivesome.
Not that they have been dangerous selections, thoughts you. The second workforce was far uglier.
Fort was a near-unanimous alternative as Rookie of the Yr regardless of averaging simply 14.7 factors, taking pictures 29 % on 3-pointers, and taking part in for a workforce that, regardless of the presence of Victor Wembanyama, didn’t make the playoffs.
If final 12 months’s rookie class had something going for it, it’s this:
It is perhaps higher than this 12 months’s group.
Sure, the new freshman pledges are led by a blue-chipper, Cooper Flagg. He’s extra of a lock to win Rookie of the Yr honors than Wembanyama was two years in the past.
Predicting Flagg will stroll away with this 12 months’s {hardware} is kid’s play. Profiting on it’s a bit harder.
Flagg is a minus-225 favourite within the present BetMGM listings. In layman’s phrases, that’s a $225 funding with an opportunity of successful solely $100.
On the baseball diamond, that’s a bit of like Clayton Kershaw pitching towards the Rockies.
Alas, a shrewd businessman would observe: Investing $225 for six months and getting $325 in return six months later is a 44-percent return in your funding. The place else are you able to get that?
After all, that’s presuming your financial institution doesn’t go bankrupt. Or on this case, Flagg doesn’t play the season at half-staff.
If the brand new Maverick have been to contract Anthony Davis-itis whereas in Dallas and missed 18 or extra video games – which might make him ineligible for NBA honors – then unexpectedly an enormous pot of Flagg funding cash can be up for grabs.
That might be a longshot seeker’s dream.
Ah, now I acquired your consideration. So, if you happen to’re trying to danger a bit of to make lots, listed below are 4 present ponies that would upset (pun meant) Man ‘o Battle this season:
Jeremiah Fears, Pelicans (+10000)
New Orleans appears to have determined to tank this season. We’ll know for positive after they commerce Zion Williamson for Jonathan Kuminga and a few draft picks in a couple of months. However for now: It’s a tug-of-war between Jordan Poole and Fears to see who bogarts probably the most photographs. Fears is larger and stronger, and that would result in the 20-point scoring common that will get votes at season’s finish.
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Yang Hansen, Path Blazers (+6000)
Followers flocked to Las Vegas final summer time to get up-close-and-personal with Bronny James, and most acquired precisely what they anticipated – one other LeBron flop. This 12 months, the star attraction in Vegas was Yang, and what some imagine they witnessed was a second coming of Yao Ming. The 7-foot-1 Chinese language import blocked photographs, handed the ball unselfishly, and even buried 3-pointers.
He’s assured eyeballs – and taking part in time – on a Portland workforce that, not like New Orleans, needs to be aggressive.
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Nikola Subject, Thunder (+10,000)
Don’t overlook that this 12 months’s rookie class isn’t the identical as this 12 months’s draft class. So long as you have not performed within the NBA, you continue to get ROOKIE stamped in your brow this season. Subject was one other of Sam Presti’s sensible draft-and-stashes final 12 months. He’s skilled and seems able to step in when final season’s league chief involved – Shai Gilgeous-Alexander – takes one too many hits this time round.
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Ace Bailey, Jazz (+1500)
This 12 months’s draft was uncommon in that the highest three picks – Flagg, Dylan Harper, and VJ Edgecombe – have been all chosen by groups prone to make the playoffs. That might (particularly with the latter two) reduce into taking part in time. However no such issues for the No. 5 pick, Bailey, who’s prone to problem Fears for the excellence of scoring probably the most meaningless fourth-quarter factors within the league.
Hey, all of them depend in an unpleasant Rookie of the Yr race.
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