Rookies, Incoming Class Proving NBA Draft’s Importance

The NBA Draft has long been the lifeblood of the league, each year offering up an infusion of talent for teams that do their due diligence and proper development.

And the 2025 NBA Draft class has gotten off to a blisteringly hot start.

While it’s early in the 2025-26 season, eight different NBA newbies are already scoring in double figures, with plenty more knocking on the door. 

Hornets guard Kon Knueppel leads the way so far, scoring a scorching 17.9 points per game that includes his career high of 32 in his hometown of Milwaukee on Friday night. 76ers’ hybrid VJ Edgecombe trails at 15.6 due to his white-hot start, and No. 1 pick Cooper Flagg is close behind despite the Mavericks’ struggles.

Other double-digit rookie scorers include Jeremiah Fears, who nabbed eight steals Friday night, as well as standouts Cedric Coward, Dylan Harper, Tre Johnson, Derik Queen.

That list doesn’t even account for players like Ryan Kalkbrenner, averaged 9.9 points on an absurd 83% shooting from the field, or Collin Murray-Boyles, who’s been a defensive specialist so far in Toronto.

Suffice it to say, the ’25 draft class has shown just how important the draft can be to both rebuilding and adding talent to already-proven teams. The Charlotte Hornets are a great example of this, having lived in the NBA's middle ground for some time, but landing a great '25 draft class and already seeing the returns of it.

To a lesser degree, the incoming 2026 draft class is proving the very same thing.

The top tier of players in Kansas guard Darryn Peterson, Duke forward Cameron Boozer and BYU wing AJ Dybantsa are already proving themselves, but a host of other players have stepped up to make things interesting in the next tier.

So far, North Carolina’s Caleb Wilson, Arizona’s Koa Peat, Louisville’s Mikel Brown Jr. and Virginia Tech’s Neoklis Avdalas are rounding out tier two, and seem to be ready to offer NBA teams some of the better top-10 prospects we’ve seen in some time.

And with how stellar the top groups have been, that only deepens the class in general, with upperclassmen and other freshman pushed to the late lottery and beyond.

Today's slate of both NBA and college basketball games is another testament to the current and incoming talent in the association, with Knueppel, Coward and Murray-Boyles facing off in NBA action, as well as Peterson, Dybantsa, and Brown playing collegiately.