Young And Gettin' It

The new crop of rooks has been blessed with otherworldly talent and dope personalities. Get ready for the takeover.

- Max Resetar

The rookies had been moving all morning: front and center at the annual Panini Rookie Photo Shoot at the Knicks’ practice facility in Tarrytown, NY, doing interviews, taking pictures, signing autographs, making funny social media videos. The day was dragging on but they never seemed to get tired.

And when we grabbed Markelle Fultz, Lonzo Ball, Jayson Tatum, Josh Jackson, De’Aaron Fox and Dennis Smith Jr after lunch for our shoot, they were ready. They didn’t seem annoyed or bored or drained. In fact, they couldn’t stop laughing at each other and everyone around them.

It can be tough to remember that these potential superstars, with millions of dollars and followers, still can’t legally walk into a bar. They’re just kids. They’re all so damn good at basketball, so mature and ready for the spotlight, that it doesn’t feel like they were just in high school.

Fultz, Ball, Tatum, Jackson, Fox and Smith Jr are, for lack of a better phrase, cool as shit. They can hoop—more on that in a moment—and they carry themselves with the utmost confidence. Their personalities are so different, too. They range from quiet to comedic to talkative to boisterous. That’s why we wanted to get them together.

Members of the ’96 and ’14 classes were also featured as a crew on our cover. We don’t know how Andrew Wiggins, Jabari Parker, Joel Embiid and the rest of the ’14 rooks will fare in their careers, but early returns are promising. The guys from ’96? Well, a few of them are Hall of Fame-bound.