The 2017 NBA draft is living up to its hype as it's proving to be the best class the league has seen in years.

Many of this season's rookies have taken the league by storm and are looking like future stars already.

The likes of Donovan Mitchell, Jayson Tatum, Lauri Markkanen, Kyle Kuzma, Lonzo Ball and John Collins have all made positive impacts for their teams.

Lottery picks De'Aaron Fox, Josh Jackson and Frank Ntilikina have also shown flashes of their talent despite reduced roles with their respective teams and have bright futures ahead.

The Dallas Mavericks have an explosive young star on their hands too in Dennis Smith Jr.

Under Mavs head coach Rick Carlisle, he has been developing impressively and will only get better under the tutelage of one of the best leaders in the game.

Carlisle has often raved about Smith and his abilities but his admiration for this year's rookies goes beyond his own player.

The 58-year-old believes this crop of first-year players could be one of the greatest the NBA has ever seen.

He even made a hugely bold claim by stating that they could possibly go on to become as good the 1984 draft, which produced some of the game's greatest ever players and is considered as the best draft class of all time.

"It's a great class," Carlisle said, per SportsDay. "And over the next two, three or four years, that will really tell the story of how great.

"It took 10, 15 years to see just how great that [1984] class was going to be. This draft has the same opportunity to have that same kind of impact.

"But becoming that kind of great player & kind of a generational Hall-of-Fame-type player is more than just being in a good draft.

"You've got to do a lot of great things and got to do a lot of things the right way. You've got to be guided the right way and be in the right situations with good players.

"From what I've seen, all these guys have been drafted into good situations that are going to be enhancing situations, so it's very promising."

The '84 draft famously produced Michael Jordan, Charles Barkley, Hakeem Olajuwon and John Stockton, who were all inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.

This is extremely high praise from Carlisle - who was himself part of the class of '84 - and extremely early but the signs so far have been very encouraging and we are definitely seeing players who will be dominating the league for years to come.