Top 5 Best NBA Debuts

Top 5 Best NBA Debuts

The rookies who caught the eye right from the start

At the beginning of each season in the National Basketball Association, expectations for new players in the league are extremely high. All specialists, journalists and even their teammates are counting on them to be the breath of fresh air that will inspire more confidence and bring more success to the teams.

And the reason is that quite a few rookies have done great in their first campaigns, and even their first NBA games. In the following lines, we will tell you about the five who singled out the most of the rest.

We start with LeBron James. "The King", as he is now known, played his first game in the Alien League in the fall of 2003 as the first pick in the draft by Cleveland Cavaliers. In the first clash in which he participated, he managed to realize 25 points, make 6 rebounds, 9 assists and distinguished himself with 4 steals. Indicators that immediately drew attention to LeBron, which broke the record for points scored by a rookie who never played college basketball but was drafted straight out of high school. By the end of his freshman campaign, he had become the first Cavaliers player to win Rookie of the Year honors, finishing with averages of 20.9 points, 5.5 rebounds and 5.9 assists per game. His team failed to make the playoffs, but achieved 18 more wins than the previous season. James is currently part of the Los Angeles Lakers team, with which he won his fourth ring in 2020. The lightweight winger is 37 and regarded as one of the game's greatest.

The fourth position is again for a competitor who played for the Lakers, but made his debut with the team of the city rival - the LA Clippers. It's about Lamar Odum, whose debut was at the end of the last century. In October 1999 he scored 30 points against Seattle Super Sonics in the 92:100 loss. In 44 minutes on the floor, he finished with 12 rebounds, 2 steals, 2 blocks and 3 assists as the only one impressive thing about the Clippers' selection. Logically, at the end of the season, he was selected to the NBA rookie team with averages of 16.6 points, 7.8 rebounds and 4.2 assists. Curiously, he didn't even want to debut in the league, because according to him, he was still too early for big basketball and wanted to return to the college team of Rhode Island, but already signed a contract, played only 4 minutes more a little off the mark since their first meeting. Subsequently, he also played for Miami, 7 seasons in the Lakers, with which he won the title twice, as well as in Dallas, and in the summerit in 2014 he moved to Europe for the end of his career, which is in Spain Baskonia.

We put Oscar Robertson in the top 3. The point guard, who in the 1960s was one of the sensations in the NBA. After winning Olympic gold in the summer, he made his debut on October 19 with triple-double against Los Angeles Lexus – 21 points, 12 rebounds and 10 assists. Robertson fully justified the bonus of 33 thousand paid by Cincinnati Royals upon signing the contract. The curious thing is that in his first meeting he faces his co-workertbornik in the selection of the USA Jerry West, who in subsequently became one of the legends of "the lakers". With averages of 30.5 points, 10.1 rebounds and 9.7 assists, he was selected as the rookie of the year and made the NBA's ideal team for the season. His team achieved 33 victories, which is 14 more than last season. Robertson's career ended in 1974 as the lastandfor the 4 seasons he was part of Milwaukee, with which he also won the title in 1971.

At the foot of the peak is one of the greatest – Wilt Chamberlain. A man who broke as many as 8 records in his debut season in the NBA. But his first match is also extremely memorable. On October 24thinin 1959 The Philadelphia Warriors are facing the New York Knicks, and the center has 43 points, 28 rebounds and 1 assist. Presentation that brings the success of Philly. Chamberlain shot 17-of-27 from the field and 9-of-15 from the free throw line, which really looks impressive. He also set records for both points and rebounds in an NBA debut. He finished the regular season with record-breaking averages of 37.6 points and 27 rebounds per game. It also earned him the regular season MVP award as well as the Rookie of the Year award. Wilt also won the All-Star game, in which he was selected as the most valuable player with his 23 points and 25 rebounds for the East team. The beginning of a career that brought him one title each with Philadelphia and the Los Angeles Lakers and ended only in 1973.

Despite Chamberlain's phenomenal achievements, the top spot in this ranking goes to Michael Carter-Williams, who is still an active basketball player. The point guard made his debut on October 30, 2013 against the defending two-time champion Miami Heat and finished the game with 22 points, 12 assists, 7 rebounds and, mind you, 9 steals. Yes, no mistake – 9! This is an all-time record for a rookie in his NBA debut. And not only that, Carter-Williams so inspires the game of Philly in the first game, that the predictions of all the experts, how the Miami players will win the meeting, become fluff and dust. Victory with 114:110 for The Seventy Sixers, whose season, however, is not developing particularly well. Although in less than a week we will see the second double-double of Mladoka's 26 points and 10 rebounds in a win over the Chicago Bulls, Philadelphia is a long way from putting the team in playoff contention with just 17 more wins in its remaining 80 games. However, Carter-Williams won Player of the Week in his NBA debut, the last time a rookie did it in 1992. and his name is Shaquille O'Neill. A promising start. The point guard finished the campaign with averages of 16.7 points, 6.3 assists, 6.2 rebounds and 1.9 steals, earning him Rookie of the Year honors by earning 104 first-place votes out of 124 possible votes. He is currently part of the Orlando Magic, which is his sixth different career team. A career that didn't develop the way it started.

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