SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA – MARCH 11: Kon Knueppel #7 of the Charlotte Hornets goes up for a shot against Maxime Raynaud #42 of the Sacramento Kings during the first half at Golden 1 Center on March 11, 2026 in Sacramento, California. NOTE TO USER: User expressly acknowledges and agrees that, by downloading and/or using this photograph, user is consenting to the terms and conditions of the Getty Images License Agreement. (Photo by Ezra Shaw/Getty Images)
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Making it in the NBA is one of the most difficult feats one can accomplish in the human experience. That daunting task is even more improbable when you are chosen in the second round of the draft. There isn’t as much pressure on general managers to have those picks pan out, so they don’t feel inclined to give those players as many opportunities.
However, when you can hit on one of these selections, it gives you a significant strategic advantage from a salary cap perspective, as these rookies are (typically) cheaper to roster than first rounders.
With this in mind (and the 2025-26 regular season nearing its finale), we decided to look at eight second round players from this class who have already proven that they belong.
*For the sake of simplicity, we are just looking at second round rookies. With that said, undrafted players like Ryan Nembhard, Dylan Cardwell, and Caleb Love have already exhibited some promising flashes this season.
31st Overall Pick: Rasheer Fleming, Phoenix Suns
The Phoenix Suns have been one of the best stories of the season. And as I highlighted in my recent feature on them, their player evaluation process has played a key role in this process.
Rasheer Fleming is the perfect embodiment of this. The Suns, especially with Dillon Brooks sidelined with a hand injury, are sorely lacking in size and vertical athleticism. Fleming has come in and instantly filled a much-needed void for them.
Fleming’s 7’5 wingspan has provided an instant boost to Phoenix. He is in the 85th percentile in block rate (despite not being a center), and the Suns are outscoring teams by 10.2 points per 100 possessions when he’s on the floor (per Cleaning the Glass).
In this day and age, if you have size and can defend, there will always be a place for you, especially if his jumper keeps falling (34.9% from three on 74th percentile volume).
33rd Overall Pick: Sion James, Charlotte Hornets
Sion James may not be as long (6’6.5 wingspan) or trigger-happy from downtown as Fleming (32nd percentile in 3-point volume), but he makes up for it by being as sturdy as a house of bricks.
On a team that is devoid of perimeter defense, James has come in and checked an unmarked box for the (hopefully) playoff-bound Charlotte Hornets. To give you a glimpse of his on-ball excellence, this season, James has held Donovan Mitchell to 5-of-16 shooting from the floor (31.3%) in the four games he’s been tasked with shadowing him (per NBA.com).
If you can play consistent minutes on a team that is top seven in net rating as a rookie, then you usually will have a spot in the league for a long time.
34th Overall Pick: Ryan Kalkbrenner, Charlotte Hornets
Man, the Hornets really killed the second round this year. Along with point-of-attack defense, Charlotte faced a lot of question marks at the center spot after trading away Mark Williams.
Ryan Kalkbrenner has been a solid backup option behind Moussa Diabaté (who absolutely rocks, by the way). He doesn’t do much, but what he does do, he does so at an elite level. This season, Kalkbrenner ranks first among rookies in rim field goal percentage (78.7%), fourth in offensive rebounding rate (12.6%), and fifth in block rate (6.1%).
42nd Overall Pick: Maxime Raynaud, Sacramento Kings
This year has really sucked for the Sacramento Kings. They thought they had a playoff team. Then, it turned out that they were actually quite bad. And now, they are stuck paying a lot of flawed players a bunch of money and are without any sense of true direction.
Fortunately, Maxime Raynaud’s unlikely emergence as a rotation-level big man has made matters a little less bleak. Think of him as a slightly worse finishing version of Kalkbrenner (sixth in rim efficiency among rookies), without the elite shot-blocking ability (he projects as a below-average defensive center).
Where Raynaud laps Kalkbrenner is in his knack for reading the floor and finding open teammates. Raynaud is second among rookie centers in total assists (87).
43rd Overall Pick: Jamir Watkins, Washington Wizards
It may be hard to believe, considering that the Washington Wizards are the worst defense in basketball and allowed Bam Adebayo to score 83 points in a single game, but Jamir Watkins has all-league defensive upside.
Watkins is third among all rookies in Defensive Estimated Plus-Minus (per Dunks & Threes), trailing only Collin Murray-Boyles and Hugo Gonzalez (two of the best defensive prospects of this class). Watkins is also the only rookie to lead his team in this metric. His steal rate and block rate are in the 91st and 90th percentile among all wings, respectively.
If you want to learn more about Watkins, I highly encourage you to check out this in-depth breakdown from Harrison-Hamm on Bullets Forever.
48th Overall Pick: Javon Small, Memphis Grizzlies
Last Summer, my good buddy Ben Pfeifer compared Javon Small to Miles McBride, and I’ve got to say, few things in life have ever been more spot-on.
Small is a pest at the point-of-attack, shoots the piss out of the ball (first among rookies in 3-point percentage), and knows how to get a bucket in a pinch – only Kon Knueppel (the current favorite for Rookie of the Year) has a higher effective field goal percentage on pull-ups among rookies this season.
According to HoopsHype, McBride has already earned 13 million dollars in his NBA career. Safe to say Small is on track to do the same.
50th Overall Pick: Kobe Sanders, Los Angeles Clippers
The fact that I’ve already written a whole separate article on Kobe Sanders this season should tell you everything you need to know.
56th Overall Pick: Will Richard, Florida Gators
As my team’s varsity head coach always likes to say, “Winners win!” So, it makes sense that a former member of the National Champion Florida Gators is finding success at the NBA level.
For many of the same reasons I’ve discussed with Fleming and Sanders, Will Richard has established himself as someone who needs to be on an NBA roster because he can space the floor, defend (second among all rookies in steals per game, by the way), and do just enough off-the-dribble to keep defenses honest.
What’s interesting is that Richard may have the best shooting touch of anyone named in this article, as he has the highest free throw percentage of all of them (85.2%).