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I thought this list was going to be easy. I was … kind of wrong.
The greatest rookie seasons in NBA history, first … includes several seasons from the ABA so we’re already off track, and second, must discuss players across radically different eras; college basketball was much more important at different times, players were literally older or younger depending on when you check, the sport was played so differently — believe me when I say Jerry Lucas and his 17 points-17 boards season wouldn’t much recognize Blake Griffin’s 22-12 season.
But I did my best to consider everything fairly. The list will have its idiosyncrasies, and deserving players will be left off it since there are far more than 30 great rookie years and many, many more great players who got off to auspicious starts. But I wanted to paint as interesting a picture as I could of the history of rookie seasons, bringing in different eras and the league’s most iconic players along with some good stories. Hopefully, that means we all have fun even if it’s literally the worst list ever oh my god what do you mean LeBron is 11 are you stu — enjoy!
The 1971-72 ABA season saw the debut of a few important players, most notably Julius Erving, the great Dr. J, who averaged 27 points per game but finished second to Artis Gilmore in Rookie of the Year voting … because Gilmore also won the league’s MVP award in his first season. Scoring over 23 points, grabbing 17 rebounds and bringing five blocks (five!) to the party, the ABA and its 11 teams were simply unprepared for Artis and the hulking stature of the A-Train. One of the NBA’s all-time greatest defenders, and the league’s career leader in defensive rebounds. When you have any kind of rebounding record over Wilt Chamberlain, you’re pretty sick.
Chris Paul was not a unanimous Rookie of the Year in 2006 … because one person voted for Deron Williams despite that being an utterly indefensible choice. Paul’s early career inspired hope in a city devastated by Hurricane Katrina, and most of his rookie season actually took place in Oklahoma City, but it was clear to all that Paul would be a premier point guard in the league for a long time. He was such a complete player immediately.
Welcome to “Stats You Didn’t Know You Needed!” with Oliver Fox: Mark Jackson is the only Rookie of the Year winner ever to average double-digit assists. Not Chris Paul, not Ben Simmons, just … Mark Jackson. It’s arguable that his 1987-88 season was his best year, even if that Knicks team didn’t really come into its own until the following season when they topped 50 wins. Still, Mark Jackson was a real point guard in his day, and won the Rookie of the Year award outside the lottery as the 18th pick. That is tough to do.
We don’t really have any 20-20 guys anymore, but the 1960s was full of them, 20 points, 20 rebounds until the cows come home. Jerry Lucas was the type of big man you wanted in that era, capable of scoring but mostly capable of grabbing a presently unfathomable number of rebounds, and managed 17 and 17 his rookie season before ratcheting both those numbers up in later years. He was also an excellent free throw shooter for his size and position, which I love from an analytical sicko perspective.
Every year, the NBA polls GMs anonymously and asks lots of questions. The most interesting, to me, is always this one: If you were starting a franchise today and could sign any player in the NBA, who would it be? Well, in 2016, after Karl Anthony-Towns’ rookie season, here were the responses: “1. Karl-Anthony Towns, Minnesota – 48.3%, 2. Kevin Durant, Golden State – 20.7%, 3. LeBron James, Cleveland – 17.2%.” Yeah … Towns’ rookie season may not be remembered like it should be because he never became the Godzilla-Terminator/evolutionary basketball god we all thought he could become, but there was major hype around Towns after his rookie year.
Explaining to future generations that rookie Ben Simmons was not only good but actually great and often majestic will be one of my great passion projects for the rest of my life. Visually, he was LeBron; passing genius, glided downhill, crazy explosive dunking ability. He couldn’t shoot any kind of jumpshot, but he was an all-universe defender, and it was clear that even with the shooting limitations, Simmons would be AT WORST an elite slashing point guard who was 6’10” and could clamp anybody. Any version of that player would work. And then it just … didn’t. Simmons’ inability to shoot led to a downward spiral that ended his career. But rookie Ben Simmons was magical.
Another example of a player the league was clearly just unprepared for, Pettit utterly dominated for 11 years in the league, even winning a championship at the height of Bill Russell’s monopoly. He never averaged fewer than 20 points, and outside of his first and last seasons never finished below sixth in MVP voting, winning two. He was on 10 consecutive All-NBA first teams, including for his sterling rookie season, for which he took home the Rookie of the Year. Sometimes all you gotta’ do is list stats.
One of the few players in NBA history for whom it is pretty inarguable that his best season was his first season. Walter Davis exploded onto the scene in 1977 with over 24 points per game after a legendary career at UNC that included winning an Olympic Gold Medal in 1976. Davis had a great career, and was posthumously inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2024, but the peak of his basketball career came right at the beginning, which was much more common in the late 70s and early 80s, when college basketball occupied much more of our national attention.
I have a soft spot for Dischinger the Dentist, who gets absolutely no love in NBA history despite dominating in his rookie season, scoring 25 points per game and winning the Rookie of the Year award while still getting a degree in chemical engineering from Purdue AT THE SAME TIME. He served in the US Army for two years in the prime of his career and thus never amounted to the Hall of Fame career he would have had otherwise. But he said “whatever,” went to dental school, graduated valedictorian, opened an orthodontic practice near Portland, Oregon, was married for 50 years, had three kids, nine grandkids, and died in 2023 at 82 years old. Terry Dischinger did alright.
Is this a curveball? I’m not sure, as Doncic’s stats in his rookie year pale in comparison to some of the other entries on this list and to his own stats in later years, but we were all acutely aware of how special Luka was in the season itself, especially since he came out of nowhere, speeding at 105 mph in the left lane to snatch the award from Trae Young, who we all thought had it locked up for half the year. Let’s just say … that was an omen of things to come.
We all know how great Durant was and still is, and his first season began his rapid acceleration to become possibly the greatest putter-of-the-ball-into-the-hoop in NBA history. But my favorite thing about Durant’s rookie season? What happens to those stats if the Seattle SuperSonics come back from the dead as an expansion team? Does Durant lose places on the Thunder all-time lists? Who gets all the rookie records from this season? What of Nick Collison’s legacy? Important stuff to consider.
I was obsessed with Allen Iverson when I was a small child, and it was for two reasons: first, the crossover is objectively the coolest thing about basketball to a 10-year-old, and if you Google “who had the best crossover in NBA history?” Iverson comes up 97 times. Second, I had a kids basketball book that had a line that went like this: “Fans of the 76ers in the 90s often questioned if their team would ever be good again … Allen Iverson was THE ANSWER” … tell me that isn’t the hardest thing you’ve ever heard. The original A.I. had an incredible rookie year on just a putrid 76ers team and eventually dragged them to relevancy. But for the line from my book alone, Iverson was always making the list.
Rick Barry and his underhanded free throws took the Warriors from 17 to 35 wins as a rookie, bringing 25 points and 10 rebounds out of nowhere in one of the most statistically impressive rookie seasons, if perhaps not necessarily the most culturally iconic. His underhanded free throws proved effective, though, and he’s a career 89 percent free throws shooter. I’m honestly shocked Mitchell Robinson hasn’t tried them.
Second-best player in his draft, didn’t win Rookie of the Year … man, this guy can’t be all that … oh, the other guy was Michael Jordan? Got it, got it. Olajuwon’s rookie year was excellent, and I have it above several Rookie of the Year winners just because of what it represented for the league. Two transcendent players entered the league at the same time, and both made their mark immediately. Olajuwon would continue to refine his game over the years, as would Jordan. Their parallel stories is what makes it all so cool.
One of the very-most-forgotten-about superstars, Hayes was the best player on a championship team in 1978, leading the Washington Bullets to the title in the last relevant season in Washington basketball history (going on 50 years, everyone mark your calendars!). Hayes didn’t win Rookie of the Year despite scoring 28 points per game for the Rockets because a different Bullets big man took the award that year (he’s coming up), in one of the strangest award situations in NBA history. But Hayes and his legacy shall remain protected here.
After the ultimate bummer of Griffin missing his entire first season with a freak accident knee injury, he returned for a delightful rookie campaign that saw him score 22 points, grab 12 boards and win the Rookie of the Year award and finish top-10 in MVP voting. It’s one of like four good things that have happened to Clippers fans this century, so we shall celebrate that along with the Kawhi Leonard signing, the Chris Paul trade and the time when they set the NBA record for free throw percentage in 2020 at 84 percent.
Elgin Baylor is regarded as one of the sport’s great innovators; before he started soaring around the court with athleticism never before seen by human eyes, the NBA was a bit slow, a bit prodding and not all-that explosive. Baylor changed that as one of the league’s first great wing scorers and still the NBA’s career leader in shot attempts per game at over 23 per contest (man, Russ is jealous). His stats are ridiculous, and even in his rookie season he dropped 25-15-4 and finished third in MVP voting.
Averaging 13 points and 18 rebounds per game, Wes Unseld was awarded the MVP AWARD, yes that is the MVP Award, as a rookie in 1968-69, which remains a bit crazy but also reflects how the award was considered differently back then. With the addition of Unseld, the Bullets went from worst-to-first and changed their whole identity with rebounding and sick outlet passes; it’s not all about stats, kids.
What you know about Chicago Packers basketball? Nothing? Well, it was their only season, as they would eventually become the Chicago Zephyrs and then the Baltimore Bullets and then the Capital Bullets and then the Washington Bullets and then the Washington Wizards — but I digress. Walt Bellamy knew all about the Chicago Packers, scoring 31 points and grabbing 19 rebounds for the expansion franchise, though he would never really get back to those numbers again. 31 points as a rookie, though … not many people have those credentials.
The beginning of what I’d call the “Top 11.” On paper, James’ rookie season doesn’t read like the kind of “oh my God this is basketball Jesus” statline you might expect, but you have to remember he was doing this out of high school. The fact that LeBron looked comfortable, dominant and immediately the sure thing that everybody thought he was is enough to get 11th on the list, because … we all know what came after the Rookie of the Year season: the next 23 years and counting.
I’ve always considered Orlando Magic Shaq to be like Minnesota Vikings Randy Moss: never closed the deal in the playoffs, but the memory persists, the memory of a player whose power and dominance caught the league so ridiculously off guard. Well, people actually knew Shaq was going to be great, but “unstoppable” doesn’t even really begin to describe what rookie Shaq did to people. He was so much stronger than everyone else and was already showing off the player who would come to dominate the league.
Wembanyama’s rookie season is that much more impressive because it came so much later than many others on the list. Teams are incredibly deep these days, and rookies simply aren’t relied upon for the kind of monstrous, immediate impact that we used to demand. But Wemby was so ridiculous that he would not be denied. I do not understand how he was not Defensive Player of the Year his rookie season over Rudy Gobert; I did not understand it at the time, I do not understand it now. Every season Wemby is healthy enough to hit the 65-game minimum, he should be DPOY.
Bird’s rookie season is interesting, not just because it was great or because it was the harbinger of one of the greatest careers in sports history, but because he was also taking and making 3-pointers at something that resembles a modern clip. It was on low volume, but Bird’s early adoption of the long-range shot was part of what made him so revolutionary; he wasn’t just dominating, he was pushing the game forward.
Tim Duncan technically could be credited with a then-record single-season turnaround of +36 wins during his rookie season, but that’s mostly because David Robinson (who you bet is coming up later) was hurt for the entire previous year and the Spurs went 20-62 before Robinson returned with Duncan to go 56-26. That doesn’t mean Duncan isn’t still squarely in the Top 10, as his defensive abilities, immediate scoring ability and, above all else, his fundamental consistency helped the Spurs immediately. Only one year later, he was the Finals MVP.
It wasn’t really until 1987 that Jordan became a one-man billion-dollar franchise and probably the single most valuable asset in the history of sports, but 1984-85 still showed you everything you needed to know: scoring like you’ve never seen before, competitive sociopath, ready and willing to break down any and all doors between him and the basket at all times. Michael Jordan is, well, Michael Jordan, and the beginnings of the GOAT were nothing to sneer at.
After fulfilling his service requirement from the Naval Academy, David Robinson showed up, donned “The Admiral” nickname and led a 35-freaking-game turnaround in a single season, taking the Spurs from a 21-win to a 56-win team in a single season. That’s preposterous, and Robinson is one of those advanced stats gods that you look back on and wonder how we would regard them if we had stuff like box plus/minus in the 1990s. Robinson was cooking in all those categories.
The top four on this list start to approach “oh, this guy might just be the best player in the league already” status, and Oscar Robertson can help show us why: Robertson was such a startlingly complete basketball player that the league didn’t know what hit it. He could score, he could orchestrate an offense, he could rebound because he had size. He’s almost a mythical figure to modern NBA fans, the original 6’5” point guard demigod that made today’s Luka Doncic and Cade Cunningham possible. Robertson had no ramp up, no acclimation time; he just got it immediately, with 30-10-10 right out the gate and basically for his entire career.
Abdul-Jabbar was selected first overall by two teams: the Milwaukee Bucks in the NBA and the New York Nets in the ABA, and was offered over a million dollars by three teams: the Bucks, Nets and the Harlem Globetrotters. Abdul-Jabbar was perhaps the surest thing since … ever, and everyone on the planet knew whichever team landed him would be transformed into a juggernaut — heck, whichever league landed him would be transformed, and you could argue Kareem’s decision to go with the NBA over the ABA secured its eventual dominance before the merger. Nobody forced the game forward more than Abdul-Jabbar in his day. He elevated the level so much an entire generation of players would emerge in an attempt to match his quality. It wasn’t until the next guy on this list, his teammate and the guy who would have to fill in for Kareem in Game 6 of the 1980 NBA Finals, would anyone actually come close.
Such a great nickname that it just became his name. Earvin “Magic” Johnson was such a transformative player in his rookie season that he changed everything about what an NBA player could be, how they could play and who they could be as a cultural icon. His stats were great, sure, but the reason he’s number two on this list is because of Game 6 of the 1980 NBA Finals, when Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was unable to play due to a sprained ankle. The rookie Magic started at center and scored 42 points, often cited as perhaps the greatest single game in NBA playoff history. As a rookie.
The NBA’s Rookie of the Year award is named “The Wilt Chamberlain Trophy,” and here’s why: in his first year in the league, Chamberlain won the MVP award, scored 37.6 points per game and brought down 27 rebounds to go with them. Talking about Wilt stats in the modern era is like talking about if Napoleon or Alexander the Great would be a good military general today, I don’t know man, it was a different time. But there is absolutely nobody who could be number one on this list; he was instantaneously the best player in the league, with stats so gobsmacking you forget what sport they’re for.
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