I haven't watched too much of the other Sophomores this season, but that doesn't change the fact that it is still pretty hard to place Smart within their ranks, mostly because he's so hard to put him in perspective of the other rookies with his biggest strengths being intangibles.
Notably, not counting Cleveland since they made unmatchable improvements between '14 and '15, only Boston, Charlotte, and Utah have managed to get into playoff positions. Of these three teams, Smart is the only active contributor since Vonleh (CHA) was traded to Portland and Exum (UTA) has been out with an ACL tear.
Personally, I think Smart is still about the 5-6th best player of that draft. Not counting Exum or Embiid, i think you might be able to sneak Jokic, LaVine, Randle, and Clarkson above him, but both are pretty subpar defenders and don't contribute on a winning team. Wiggins is still clearly the #1. Parker, as he is now, is still a little shaky as the second best player.
Again, I haven't watched much of the other sophomores, so i would love to hear other opinions.
For Reference:
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Andrew Wiggins (MIN)
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Jabari Parker (MIL)
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Joel Embiid (PHI)
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Aaron Gordon (ORL)
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Dante Exum (UTA)
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Marcus Smart (BOS)
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Julius Randle (LAL)
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Sauce Castillo (PHI)
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Noah Vonleh (POR)
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Elfrid Payton (ORL)
Other Notables:
11 . Doug McDermott (CHI)
13 . Zach Lavine (MIN)
23 . Rodney Hood (UTA)
24 . Clint Capela (HOU)
41 . Nikola Jokic (DEN)
46 . Jordan Clarkson (LAL)
Submitted February 28, 2016 at 02:40PM by cabose12