It’s honestly crazy how many immediate impact defenders there are in this class. Ausar, Cason Wallace, Lively, Jaquez are all borderline elite defenders already. There’s also a ton of guys with the tools, skills, and attitude, just lacking opportunity to show out Amen, Black, Bilal, OMax, AJax, Camara. I’m sure there’s others, and if I missed your guy i’m sorry.
Then there’s obviously the court warping defensive presences of Chet and Vic. It’s “cheating” a little that arguably the best defensive prospect from last year is debuting with this class, but still. I can’t remember another rookie class that had 10+ guys that I could easily see being all-def some day.
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It wouldn’t surprise me if this becomes the norm for awhile, at least as long as the NBA’s “meta” stays the same. Kids who were 12ish when the Warriors and then a few years later the Rockets started really revolutionizing how the game was played saw how important being a 3-and D player was, and how it can legit lead to max contracts for roleplayers. And shooting is one of those skills that, at least to a certain point, is teachable and can always be worked on. So they committed to defense at a young age because they saw that it’s valued both on the court and on the paychecks.
One of many people’s draft concerns w/ Jaime was on the defensive end, and personally I was even like worried his lateral movement was a little slow. But dude is really a pretty amazing defender, his isolation defense is insane rn. He’s only allowing .31 PPP, which is number 1 in the league
Rayan Rupert will be a superstar. (he’s also a good defensive prospect)