Bucks player quietly among the best of his draft class

Much of the season has been spent in the abyss, but one bright spot has stood out more than most along the way for the Milwaukee Bucks: Ryan Rollins. He only had 81 games and 19 starts coming into his fourth year. At least Draymond Green tried to tell the public about him after the 32-point bombardment on 61.9 percent shooting he inflicted on the Golden State Warriors on Oct. 30.

Rollins is becoming one of the better players from his draft class and is a candidate for the Most Improved Player crown after stops in Golden State and Washington. One way to tell if a player improved offensively is to check the elevation in the points per game bracket with the effective field goal percentage of multiple years.

If the EFGP rises or stays in the same range with more points and volume, it's a real improvement. Sometimes the public gets deceived by someone scoring more with extra usage when the EFGP is plummeting. That’s not an improvement as a scorer.

In Rollins' case, he's jumped nearly triple his points per game average while maintaining similar efficiency.

Unless something is going on behind-the-scenes, it's usually a bad scouting job for a player that talented to drop to the 44th pick. The Bucks evaluators who checked him out deserve a pat on the back for being locked in, seeing what others didn’t.

Rollins has been durable this season, only missing two outings, and he has played on the most nights. While they’ve missed Giannis Antetokounmpo for 30 games, he hasn’t let it affect him. He’s versatile as a threat on and off the dribble, and his accuracy on the move is close to it when stationary from 3-point range (39.7- 42.1 percent).

In fact, Antetokounmpo has only assisted on eight percent of Rollins’ baskets this season. It makes one wonder how potent the offense can be if they spend more time together. A playmaker of that caliber next to someone who downs 45.8 percent of wide-open threes is a match made in heaven.

Notably, of all the players from the 2022 draft, Rollins is second in points this year behind Paolo Banchero, the top pick. He’s also third in assists from that draft class (369), only between 12 and 24 dimes behind Dyson Daniels and Andrew Nemhard.

It can’t be discounted how much of the time he spent working with Rajon Rondo benefited him. When watching film, he’ll pick the two-time champion’s brain, which despite some wild moments, was one of the sharpest basketball minds in the NBA while he played.

Rollins, at age 23, is averaging 16.8 points on a 56.1 EFGP, with 4.6 rebounds and 5.6 assists against 2.6 turnovers. He still has one or two levels left to go.