{"id":387013,"date":"2026-01-02T14:30:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-02T14:30:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/387013\/"},"modified":"2026-01-02T14:30:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-02T14:30:10","slug":"nba-rookies-looking-like-draft-steals-this-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/387013\/","title":{"rendered":"NBA Rookies Looking Like Draft Steals This Season"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"MuiTypography-root MuiTypography-bp_small__body__article__medium css-1vqr2el\">Not much has gone right for the Sacramento Kings this season. An 8-26 record would back that claim up.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MuiTypography-root MuiTypography-bp_small__body__article__medium css-1vqr2el\">One silver lining of an injury to Domantas Sabonis has been the play of rookie center Maxime Raynaud, who was selected in the second round at No. 42 overall after spending four years at Stanford.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MuiTypography-root MuiTypography-bp_small__body__article__medium css-1vqr2el\">Raynaud is a huge target in the middle at 7&#8217;1&#8243;, 250 pounds. He&#8217;s been a force on both ends for the Kings, averaging 14.6 points and 9.5 rebounds, and he has 15 combined blocks and steals in his 11 starts.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MuiTypography-root MuiTypography-bp_small__body__article__medium css-1vqr2el\">His impressive size doesn&#8217;t take away from his skill or touch around the rim, however. Raynaud will catch a short roll from Russell Westbrook and finish with a push shot in one play while attacking a closeout from the arc on the next. He&#8217;s receiving a <a class=\"MuiTypography-root MuiTypography-inherit MuiLink-root MuiLink-underlineAlways MuiTypography-root MuiTypography-bp_small__ui__link__medium_strong css-lu48cp\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nba.com\/stats\/player\/1642875\/passes-dash?dir=D&amp;sort=FREQUENCY\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">whopping 40.8 percent of all his passes<\/a> from Westbrook, who&#8217;s shown a concerted effort to put his rookie center in good offensive positions.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MuiTypography-root MuiTypography-bp_small__body__article__medium css-1vqr2el\">Despite beginning the season out of the rotation and not starting a game until December, Raynaud <a class=\"MuiTypography-root MuiTypography-inherit MuiLink-root MuiLink-underlineAlways MuiTypography-root MuiTypography-bp_small__ui__link__medium_strong css-lu48cp\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nba.com\/stats\/players\/traditional?DraftYear=2025&amp;dir=A&amp;sort=REB\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">ranks fifth among all rookies<\/a> in rebounding (6.3), fourth in blocks (0.6) and ninth in scoring (10.6 points per game) while shooting 54.4 percent overall and 33.3 percent from deep.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MuiTypography-root MuiTypography-bp_small__body__article__medium css-1vqr2el\">He&#8217;s given Kings fans some reason for optimism in what&#8217;s quickly becoming a lost season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Not much has gone right for the Sacramento Kings this season. An 8-26 record would back that claim&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":387014,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[64,63,590,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-387013","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-nba","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/387013","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=387013"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/387013\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/387014"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=387013"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=387013"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=387013"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}