NBA: 5 undervalued rookies who have already proven they belong

Payton Pritchard, Boston Celtics (26th pick)

22.9 MPG, 8.6/2.4/3.1, 60.2% eFG%

I’ll put my hand up as someone who was dead wrong about Payton Pritchard. I wasn’t sure if I would draft him at all, let alone in the first round, but the early results seem to be pretty clear that I whiffed on that one. I never doubted him as a shooter, but his size (6-foot-1) and underwhelming athleticism gave me real questions about how he’d project on both ends of the floor.

On the offensive end he’s been incredibly efficient coming off the bench for the Boston Celtics. It’s still early and a very, very limited sample size, but right now he’s in the 50/40/90 (FG%/3P%/FT%) club which not many players can achieve regardless of sample size.

And while he’s not a gifted defensive player and spent a lot of time in college playing a gimmicky zone at Oregon, the guy just competes every possession and makes up for a lot of his flaws. It’ll be interesting to see how he holds up in a playoff setting where he’ll certainly be a frequent target, but so far he’s done enough to stay on the floor for extended minutes.

Pritchard’s size and lack of elite burst will almost certainly cap his long-term potential, but he’s already done enough to show that he can play in the NBA for a long time as a reliable guard off the bench, something that isn’t easy to find at the back of the first round.