On December 16, Beijing time, the NBA Rockets senior reporter Fagan wrote: So far in the regular season of the new season, the performance of the Rockets has been very shocking, and they are going all out to sprint for the playoff seats with a new mental outlook, with a current record of 12 wins and 9 losses, and have just ushered in a wave of four consecutive wins, reaching the eighth place in the West.
So far in the regular season of the new season, we have been particularly surprised to find that the first-round picks after the Rockets have selected the lottery for two consecutive years, Shin Kyung and Ethan, have become key players for this team, and they have played better and better on both offensive and defensive ends.
First of all, we need to understand what is called a lottery first round? We know that every year in the NBA there is a rookie player draft, so we also need to understand what a lottery pick is?
Lotto Pick: is the NBA's current annual rookie player draft model. The lottery show refers to the top 14 picks in each year's NBA draft, and their order will be distributed to the 14 teams that did not enter the playoffs in the previous year in the form of "lottery table tennis", and they can choose the top 14 picks in the first round, that is, the lottery pick, and they choose the top 1-14 rookie players each year
Post-Lotto First-round Pick: That is, the 16 teams that enter the playoffs and then use the same pattern to select the top 15-30 players in the current year's draft, which is called a post-lottery first-round pick.
Shin Jing is the 16th pick in the first round after the 2021 lottery selected by the Rockets, he is currently a third-year student with the Rockets, and we found through her personal data that she has improved significantly for three consecutive years: in the 2021-2022 season, he averaged 9.6 points + 5.5 rebounds + 2.6 assists per game and shot 47.4% from the field, and in the 2022-2023 season, he averaged 14.8 points + 9.0 rebounds + 3.9 assists per game and shot 55.3% from the field; In the 2023-2024 season, he averaged 20.1 points + 9.0 rebounds + 5.4 assists per game while shooting 53.0% from the field. It can be said that Shin Kyung has become a stable interior core player for the young Rockets.
Eason is the 17th pick in the first round after the Rockets drafted by the Rockets in 2022 and is currently a second-year rookie for the Rockets, but he has been developing his bench roster, so the stats are not very obvious, but he is excellent on both ends of the floor. In the 2022-2023 season, he averaged 9.3 points + 6.1 rebounds + 1.1 assists + 1.2 steals + 0.6 blocks per game and shot 44.8% from the field, and in the 2023-2024 season, he averaged 9.2 points + 7.2 rebounds + 1.2 assists + 0.6 steals + 1.2 blocks per game, shooting 48.0% from the field and 44.0% from three-point range. Especially in the last two games, he has cut 18 points + 14 rebounds and 25 points + 14 rebounds, Ethan broke out from the bench and led the Rockets to these two difficult victories! Ethan already has the qualifications to enter the starting lineup as a forward player, and if he enters the starting lineup in other teams, he can already cut an average of 15+8 stable forwards at both ends of the offensive and defensive ends per game!
Whitmore is the No. 20 player in the first round after the lottery selected by the Rockets in 2023, and has only played five games for the Rockets so far in the regular season of the new season, averaging 4.6 points + 1.6 rebounds in 6.4 minutes per game. He is currently playing for the Vipers, a development league team under the Rockets, averaging 26.9 points + 6.7 rebounds + 3.0 assists + 1.9 steals in 35.2 minutes per game, shooting 49.2% from the field and 42.8% from three-point range.
Will Whitmore be the core player of the Rockets' first-round lottery after three consecutive years of lotto? Let's wait and see!