With the NBA season now just weeks away, members of the 2026-27 rookie class are gearing up for their professional debuts. This moment rewards the countless hours of work each rookie put in to reach the NBA, and it also marks the arrival of the league’s next class of stars, role players, sharpshooters and dominant defenders.
However, nobody knows yet who will fill each of those roles in time, and over an 82-game season, rookies rarely play the way people expect them to. Some rookies need a few seasons before the game slows down for them, while others show what they can become from opening night, and this year’s class has several players ready to do exactly that.
Among them, these three stick out as the most likely to make a dark-horse run at Rookie of the Year, make 250 threes and make a playoff impact.
Most Likely to Make a Dark-Horse Run at Rookie of the Year: Mikel Brown Jr.
Brooklyn Nets
Mikel Brown Jr. currently ranks seventh in the Rookie of the Year market with a 3% chance on Kalshi, while the top four picks hold a combined 75% chance of winning the award. However, Brown Jr. enters his rookie season with as much offensive talent as any guard in the class, and at 6-foot-3.5 barefoot with a 6-foot-7.5 wingspan and a 39.5-inch max vertical, he has the size and athleticism to make his professional leap smoother on both ends.
The Orlando native is a speedy handler, a threat off the dribble and a willing passer, averaging 18.2 points, 4.7 assists and 1.2 steals at Louisville in 2025-26. More importantly, he joins a Brooklyn Nets team that still lacks a lead creator despite drafting Egor Dëmin and Nolan Traoré in the first round last year, as a foot injury limited Dëmin to 52 games and Traoré split his rookie season with the G League. That opening makes Brown the leading dark-horse candidate to win Rookie of the Year in what many believe will be a tightly contested race.
Most Likely to Make 250 Threes: Darryn Peterson
Utah Jazz
Keegan Murray became the first rookie to make 200 threes in 2022-23, finishing with 206, and that record stood until Charlotte’s Kon Knueppel beat it last season with 273 while leading the entire league, which reset what it means to enter the NBA as a top-tier shooter.
Among the many talents that made Darryn Peterson the No. 2 pick, his three-point shooting may be the most impressive, as he made 38.2% of his 6.9 attempts per game at Kansas in 2025-26 and can hit difficult, contested threes off the catch or the dribble. In Utah, he will get plenty of open looks off the catch playing on the wing next to Keyonte George, a skilled playmaker, and in front of a front-court with two former All-Stars in Lauri Markkanen and Jaren Jackson Jr. That situation makes Peterson the leading candidate in this class to join Knueppel as the only rookies to make 250 threes in a season.
Most Likely to Make a Playoff Impact: Kingston Flemings
Atlanta Hawks
The highest-drafted rookies usually land on rebuilding teams, which leaves them little chance to make a playoff impact, though No. 2 pick Dylan Harper broke that pattern last season with his stellar play during San Antonio’s run to the Finals.
Kingston Flemings sticks out for his ability to fill an impactful third-guard role on an Atlanta Hawks team that returns all five starters from last season’s playoff run. Atlanta spreads its ball-handling duties across CJ McCollum, Nickeil Alexander-Walker and All-Star forward Jalen Johnson and surrounds them with fierce perimeter defenders like Dyson Daniels and Lu Dort, so the No. 8 pick fits right in as a third guard who defends first, having averaged 1.5 steals as a freshman at Houston. On a competitive Eastern Conference team, Flemings’ on-ball defense and speed in transition can swing playoff minutes while his half-court handling and shot creation develop, which makes him the leading candidate in this class to make a playoff impact.
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