NBA Breakouts

With the NBA season underway many fans are excited for Basketball to get back into full swing. This season in particular many fans is thrilled to see their favorite players on the same team and some shifting to new teams. Fans also have the new rosters teams built off trades, free agency, and the draft to look forward to. This list will consist of some of the NBA’s most talented players who are bound for a breakout season where they play at an elite level and may even be in award talks.

Herbert Jones- #5 Small Forward, New Orleans Pelicans.

The young 24-year-old defensive star Herbert Jones is heading into his second season in the league and has already made some noise around his name mainly for his stand-out defense and hustle that he provides for the young built Pelicans team. Last season Jones averaged 9.5 points, 3.8 rebounds, 2.1 assists, and 1.7 steals per game in the regular season. Jones improved his play in the Pelican’s surprise playoff run where fans observed him lock up star player Devin Booker in multiple games. Marc Benz who is a big NBA fan is feeling the same way I am “I feel like he has improved very much since college and his first season was great. I think he’ll keep improving because of Pelican’s development team. He will be a very entertaining player and I wish him the best”.

Zion Williamson- #1 Power forward, New Orleans Pelicans.

Joining Jones on the list is his all-star teammate Zion Williamson who like Jones is a young up-and-coming star. Before his injury made it so he couldn’t play in the 2022 season Williamson was displaying his dominance to everyone in the league and the fans watching. In 2021 Williamson was averaging 27.0 points, 3.7 assists, 7.2 rebounds, and 0.9 steals per game. While many spectators speculated Williamson would be worse after his return Williamson has shown off how he’s still going to be elite in the pre-season games that the Pelicans have played so far Williamson has proven that he’s going to be a force to be reckoned with for the foreseeable future. Drew Klemsrud also believes in Zion’s abilities and believes he can be great this season. “Zions has already proven that he can be super dominant with his size and athleticism. He’s like a human cheat code out there being so big and still being able to do a standing windmill dunk”.

Tyrese Maxey- #0 Point guard/shooting guard, Philadelphia 76ers.

Maxey’s quickness in both his speed and thought processability has made the young player such a fun guy to watch with his but entertaining highlights aren’t where it ends with him. Maxey’s improvement from two seasons ago to last season was incredible. While Maxey does have ball-demanding teammates he’s still able to put up his own good stat line night in and night out. Last season Maxey averaged 17.5 points, 3.2 rebounds, 0.7 steals, and 4.3 assist a game while being on a team with MVP candidate Joel Embiid on his team. Maxey will only continue to get better only being 21 years old he hasn’t even reached his prime. Many fans agree with junior Xavier DeMarco “I think Tyrese Maxey is a future star just waiting for his breakout season and the 2022-2023 season looks to be the one. He has what it takes to be an all-star, and I expect him to leap this upcoming season”.

All in all the NBA has many players who will randomly put up a very good stat line every once and a while. Still, these are three players that I believe will have impressive seasons in terms of stats and impact for their teams because of the improvement they’ve each taken in the past seasons.