Revealed: Most Popular NBA Rookie

With the NBA season approaching we've dived into the data to discover the most popular NBA Rookie for 22/23 season.

How did we work it out?

We looked at social media followings to average monthly searches from Google. We then compiled all of this data for each rookie, and gave a score for each data point. We then took each score from each data point to come up with an overall score. This score determines the final leaderboard.

The full list of data points we compiled were:

• Instagram
• Twitter
• TikTok
• Google Search Volume

Holmgren & Banchero lead the way

It should come to no surprise that number 1 pick Paolo Banchero and number 2 pick Chet Holmgren lead the way when it comes to popularity online.

The pair have 1.2 million followers on Instagram alone between them, and they get a total of 470,000 google searches per month!

The Rest Of The Top 10

Draft pick number 41, and New Orleans Pelicans forward E.J. Liddell finished 6th in the leaderboard in terms of popularity, partly down to a huge following of 221,000 on TikTok.

Liddell's video of the moment he was selected for Pelicans has reached a huge 2.2 million views on TikTok.

Rookie Of The Year Candidates Miss Out

Despite being joint second favourite to pick up Rookie Of The Year, both Jaden Ivey and Keegan Murray missed out on the top ten. Ivey came in at number 14, whilst Murray came in at 23.

Despite suffering from an injury which will see him miss his first NBA season, Chet Holmgren was the most popular in our popularity index.

He came out top for both Twitter followers and Google searches per month, whilst he was second only to Banchero for Instagram followers, and third in the leaderboard when it came to TikTok.

The injury he suffered in August was a massive blow for both Chet and for Thunder as big things were expected from the former Gonzaga athlete.

Banchero not far behind

Despite being number one pick in the NBA Draft, Banchero lost out to Holmgren in our popularity index.

Not that he will mind - as he looks set to make a serious impression for Magic this season, and is the favourite to win Rookie Of The Year.

A total of three former Duke athletes made it into the top 10 of our popularity index, with the obvious being number 1 pick Paolo Banchero.

Despite being 16th & 15th in the draft, A.J. Griffin and Mark Williams came 4th and 8th in the populairty index.

The pair boasts a solid following on Instagram, and Mark Williams has over 103,000 searches per month on Google, which is third overall, behind only Holmgren and Banchero.

The total number of followers on social media across Duke athletes in the draft was a massive 1.2 million, with nearly 1 million of those followers coming from Instagram.

Draft pick number 55 Gui Santos came 12th overall on terms of popularity, with the Brazilian boasting a huge following of 231,000 on social media platform TikTok.

The Brazilian joined Warriors as pick number 55 in the 2022 NBA Draft, after playing for four years for Minas Storm in Brazil.

Paolo Banchero is the clear favourite, currently coming in at +180.

The rest of the odds are as follows:

Jaden Ivy: +450

Keegan Murray: +450

Jabari Smith Jr: +550

Shaedon Sharpe: +2000

Mark Williams: +4000

A.J. Griffin: +5000

Jeremy Sochan: +5000

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