Anthony Black, Amen Thompson and more NBA sophomores who've made big jumps

Sometimes we can lose the thread on a cool story because its dwarfed by a much bigger story.

Take the 2023 NBA Draft class, for instance.

That crop will always be the Victor Wembanyama draft, and I have nothing new to report on that front.

But teams selected 57 players after Wembanyama went first to the San Antonio Spurs .

And it turns out that, in the mortal realm of picks No.

2 through No.

58, we have a lot of good news to unpack: The sophomores are coming.

Advertisement That didnt necessarily seem pre-ordained after most of those picks had, shall we say, uneventful rookie years (or eventfully awful ones, in a few cases).

Wembanyama was amazing, and 2022 draft ringer Chet Holmgren was second in Rookie of the Year voting.

After that, we had a lot of shoulder shrugs.

Fortunately, several players have emerged this season to provide much more zip than they did as rookies.

Notably, only one of them was selected to either of last seasons All-Rookie teams.

While several of those players continue to be solid-to-good players shout out to Brandon Miller , Dereck Lively II , Brandin Podziemski , Trayce Jackson-Davis , Jaime Jaquez Jr.

and Cason Wallace none have had what you would call a breakout in the early stages of 2024-25.

But a few others have made large, notable steps forward after forgettable first seasons.

In particular, several players taken in the back half of the lottery after one-and-done seasons have shown profound growth.

Lets take a closer look.

(Stats and records are through Wednesdays games.) Anthony Black , Magic Black had two of the four highest-scoring games of his career this week against the Phoenix Suns on Monday and the LA Clippers on Wednesday; those two games were also the two highest-assist games of his career, with nine dimes against the Suns and eight in L.A.

We may be seeing the beginning of a breakout.

My best complete game, just because of the blend of playmaking and scoring, Black said of his effort in Phoenix.

Black has made a big jump as an offensive player after he was deep-sixed from the Magic rotation in the latter half of last season.

He got 34 charity starts to begin the season because he was the sixth pick in the draft, but his low-wattage offense (12.7 percent usage, just 13.4 points and 4.0 3-point attempts per 100 possessions) and unthreatening jumper made it tough to find him minutes on a playoff-caliber team that struggled to score.

Advertisement This season, hes become the de facto captain of the second unit, taking the reins from a struggling Cole Anthony , upping his usage to a more impactful 18.6 and more than doubling his assist rate from a year ago.

The youngest player on one of the leagues youngest teams, the 20-year-old Black is lethal in transition but still developing his perimeter shot and figuring out how to use his huge size (6-foot-7 with a thick frame) at the point to impact the game.

From a year ago to now, his maturity has gone to a different level, Magic coach Jamahl Mosley said.

His command of the court ...

we joke the way he pushes on the break, when you see the hair flowing in transition, thats his power.

I cant relate to the hair-flowing part, but Black has also become much more adept in half-court situations, with the Magic placing greater trust in him in pick-and-roll situations.

Black told me he emphasized adding strength and working on pick-and-roll reads this summer so he could take bumps and still make plays in the paint.

He knows opponents will go under against his pick-and-roll, however, and pull-up 3s will be there.

Heres a real encouraging play from the Clippers game on Wednesday, where he punished a sagging defense by hitting a pull-up 3 off the dribble.

(He did this in the Phoenix game too.) Black is at 31.7 percent from 3 for the season, but because of his other skills, he doesnt need to become a knock-down guy; he just has to make teams think twice about going under.

His combination of size, ballhandling and passing ability makes him a rare player.

Watch here , for instance, as he throws a left-handed pass over the top of the defense to hit Tristan da Silva for a corner 3.

That type of look, on a line-drive trajectory, isnt available to most smaller guards.

That also helps Black guard up positions at the defensive side, adding another plus-option to a huge, handsy Orlando team that ranks second in the NBA in defense.

Individual defense stats are noisy, and its still early, but Blacks numbers are fantastic thus far.

He had a great backcourt pick on Kevin Porter Jr.

on Wednesday and a couple of other notable deflections.

Advertisement Defensively, he does things I havent seen many guys do, Mosley said.

More importantly, Blacks size, mobility and strength mean he can be a real obstacle even on plays where he doesnt get a hand on the ball.

For instance, watch how hard he makes James Harden s life here: Black is still working out the kinks; he had six turnovers in the Clippers game and an indefensible eight-second violation against Phoenix.

But after a rookie year in which his anemic offense made him unplayable, hes making an impact on a good team and seems on a trajectory to only increase his role from here.

And those teachable moments arent slipping past notably, the Magic brought in veteran Cory Joseph this summer as a locker room sage, and hes been a steady presence in Blacks ear.

Hes been huge for me, Black said.

Hes on me, showing me different things.

Just having somebody as a point guard whos been in the league a long time has helped me out.

After a choppy rookie campaign, Blacks bloom has begun.

Amen Thompson, Rockets The fourth pick in 2023, Thompson is the one player on this list who actually made the All-Rookie team a year ago, but he was second-teamer in a blah class (non-Wemby division); he also played the bulk of his 1,388 minutes in forgettable March and April games for a lottery team.

(Thompson played more minutes in the meaningless final week of the season than he did between opening day and Christmas.) As a result, fans are getting their first extended taste of Thompsons impact and the jarring athleticism he brings to the table.

Some of his transition defense chase-down clips are mind-blowing; it looks like his tape was spliced in at 1.5x speed.

Watch how quickly he gets out of the blocks in the left corner from a complete standstill chases down Damian Lillard , then reels in Bobby Portis after a hit-ahead pass.

Thompson turns what looks like a transition jailbreak for Milwaukee into a non-event and eventually a turnover.

This is not normal, but he has one of these every game: Meanwhile, Thompson is figuring out how to make an offensive impact despite a jump shot that we will charitably describe as a work in progress.

A rare positionless chameleon what is he, a power guard? A point center? Thompsons athleticism and ball skills mean he can play point guard on one trip and have gravity as a rim-runner on the next; hes shooting 77 percent at the rim, according to Basketball-Reference.com, and 60.8 percent on 2s overall.

He also draws fouls and is making enough of the freebies (72.6 percent) for Houston to profit.

Advertisement In particular, his grab-and-go game leverages a 19.2 percent defensive rebound rate into instant transition offense.

It took 5.6 seconds from him collecting the ball at one end for it to go through the net at the other, and seemingly half of that was waiting for him to come down after he skied for the rebound: Defensively, meanwhile, the impact Thompson and Tari Eason have had as a combo meal off the bench has been breathtaking.

When the two play together, the Rockets have a 101.3 defensive rating, hold opponents to 41.6 percent shooting and enjoy a plus-13 net rating.

Consider this your weekly admonition that you simply must watch the Rockets the most exciting team nobody is talking about.

Thompsons emergence is a massive reason.

Gradey Dick , Raptors Dick showed flashes of making an impact as a movement shooter during the Raptors tragicomic mess of a 2023-24 season, but the overall metrics were humbling: an 8.9 PER on 54.6 percent true shooting, a laughable two blocked shots in 1,268 minutes and a permanent target on his chest on defense.

Dick still isnt exactly an All-Defense candidate, but hes made substantial progress in the non-shooting aspects of his game including showing more resistance on D.

(Hes even blocked five shots already!) Most amazingly, in 15 games, hes already taken more free throws than he did all of last season, showing much more juice as a slasher when teams try to take away his 3-point shot.

Dick is actually trending below par from the 3-point line (34.6 percent) but has been so effective in other phases that his scoring output (27.2 points per 100 possessions on 56.3 percent true shooting) has been really solid, and his overall numbers are well up from a year ago.

Dick is finding the in-between game that eluded him a year ago.

Maybe you dont want 2-point pull-ups to be the focal point, but he needs these shots in his bag when teams crowd him off the line, and he has the size to get them away even when contested .

One figures hell start finding the range more regularly from 3 hes an 88.8 percent career foul shooter who shot 40.3 percent from 3 in his one season at Kansas but the other key stat here is the shot volume.

At 10.4 3-point attempts per 100, hes a certified gunner who may be able to get even more triples up when Scottie Barnes returns.

Advertisement After a rough rookie campaign, Dick now looks like a key piece of the rebuilding Raptors long-term future.

Bilal Coulibaly , Wizards Watching Coulibalys progress is one of the few comfortable refuges in a Wizards game-night viewing experience.

He has moments every game where you can see that hes getting it.

After spending most of his rookie year just kind of aimlessly floating around en route to an 8.9 PER and not doing a whole more than that for France at the Olympics , Coulibalys emergence as a two-way force has been one of the new seasons most pleasant surprises.

The numbers are one thing hes shooting 62.8 percent on 2s and posting a solid 14.2 PER despite the ongoing misery surrounding him and has become much more proficient on non-rim 2s.

However, Id argue the eye test is even more encouraging.

Heres one good example in the clip below.

Coulibaly gets the ball in semi-transition after an Orlando miss, recognizes he has rookie Tristan da Silva in a one-on-one situation without big man help behind him and immediately puts his head down and goes to work.

A wicked crossover into the paint gives him half a step, then he puts da Silva on a poster: The defensive side of the ball has been just as revelatory, even in the context of flammable Wizards lineups.

Coulibalys best moments have been exclamation point worthy; watch here as he uses his length to bottle up Trae Young and leave him with no look at a game-winner on the last possession of the game, sealing one of Washingtons two victories this year.

Coulibaly is only 20 and still needs to get more consistent defensively, and offensively, he still only shoots 3s when he has acres of space.

But theres a pretty clear pathway to his being Washingtons long-term starter at the small forward and tempting hints of upside to be more.

Advertisement Jordan Hawkins , Pelicans A guy with these initials cant possibly fail.

The final lottery pick of 2023, Hawkins played eight solid games to begin this season until, per Pelicans policy, he exited the lineup with an injury (a low back strain that should see him return soon).

However, in those eight games, he showed considerably more verve as a scorer and shot-creator, leveraging the threat of his deep shooting range to generate more openings for himself inside the arc.

And he did this despite a skeleton Pels lineup in several games that left defenses much more focused on him.

Hawkins has to be a high-volume shooter and scorer because he weighs 16 pounds soaking wet (all numbers approximate) and lacks a point guards handle.

However, he is so good running off pin-downs and launching into 3s off the catch or one dribble that it opens up the rest of the floor for him.

In his rookie campaign, he wasnt effective enough on the non-3s just 41.1 percent inside the arc, with a low free-throw rate making him too dependent on outlier good 3-point shooting to justify a spot in the lineup.

This season, hes been effective enough in the other areas up to 45 percent on 2s with a big spike in free throws that he doesnt have to shoot in the 40s from 3 to have value.

Watch this clip pack , for instance, as he hits four different pull-up jumpers against Portland when the Blazers close out hard and run him off the line.

In fact, Hawkins has likely underperformed here thus far, shooting 36.6 percent at the NBA level across two seasons after knocking down 38.8 percent on sky-high volume in his final college season at Connecticut and shooting 87 percent from the line across his pro and college career.

(The Pelicans also dont hunt 3s enough in general, but thats a much larger conversation.) The fact that Hawkins is doing enough other stuff to be relatively useful even at 36.6 percent from deep is a great sign, because that percentage feels like roughly his floor.

If he can sustain this jump inside the arc and hit 40 percent from 3 on the same volume, he instantly becomes a fairly terrifying offensive player.

Jordan Miller , Clippers #FreeJordanMiller! He got his first non-garbage-time minutes of the season Wednesday against Orlando and contributed eight points, three rebounds and two steals in a win for this enjoyably scrappy Clippers team.

Advertisement Can he keep it up? The 48th pick in the 2023 draft hardly played last season.

However, he was awesome in summer league and played very well in preseason, and his other underlying data (including an impactful 39-game G League stint last year) suggests he can help.

Miller is in a different strata from the players above hes already 24 after playing five college seasons, his outside shooting is a potentially limiting factor, and his ceiling is probably more as a plus-rotation guy than a franchise building block.

Miller is also still on a two-way deal and capped at 50 games until or unless hes promoted.

But the Clippers other back-end rotation options arent exactly setting the league afire right now, and theres a growing body of evidence that Miller is a real player.

If so, that would be quite a jump in status for a late second-round pick who started his college career at George Mason and played a grand total of 48 NBA minutes in 2023-24.

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(Top photos of Amen Thompson and Anthony Black: Michael Reaves, Alex Slitz / Getty Images).

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