NBA: 5 undervalued rookies who have already proven they belong

NBA Philadelphia 76ers Tyrese Maxey (Bill Streicher-USA TODAY Sports)
NBA Philadelphia 76ers Tyrese Maxey (Bill Streicher-USA TODAY Sports) /
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NBA Boston Celtics Payton Pritchard (Gregory Fisher-USA TODAY Sports) /

5 undervalued NBA rookies already proving their worth in 2021

Is it too early to say that we were wrong about the 2020 NBA Draft class? And not just wrong, but very wrong. This was a draft class that was often projected as one of the worst we’ve had in the 2000s, but so far it looks like it might be one of the better drafts top to bottom that we’ve had in that time period.

The players at the top were the most scrutinized and have been pretty good, but the best hope for this class was going to be in its depth, and that’s what we’ll be looking at today.

Most drafts have a few guys at the top that we are pretty sure will be good players and then the rest of the draft, especially outside of the top 10, is just about trying to find guys who can be plugged into the rotation and help out.

The 2020 draft has already proven to have quite a few players drafted outside of the top 10 that have shown an ability to contribute right away, and we’ll start with one who might be the rookie of the year despite inexplicably falling to the back of the lottery.