Whose your pick?
The NBA season is approaching its end and with it come the Play-offs and the individual awards. Awards like the Rookie of the Year which is given to the best first-year player. Many of these Rookies of the Year, like Shaquille O’Neil and Micheal Jordan go on to win the MVP award, which is the most prestigious award, and ultimately win an NBA Championship.
These years race for the Rookie of the Year happens to be a pretty special one. The two contenders; Emeka Okafor and Ben Gordon were teammates in last years National Championship Team –
Emeka Okafor was a member of the last Olympic team, averages 15 points and 11 rebounds which are numbers comparable to Tim Duncan’s and Shaquille O’Neil’s rookie season averages. Both of these went on to win the MVP award as well. The only problem is that Okafor plays for an expansion team that is just trying to develop and his teammates are basically players that no one else wanted. Even with these handicaps the Bobcats, led by Okafor, were able to win 15 games.
On the other hand, Ben Gordon has an average of 15 points and has a 42% field goal percentage, which is pretty impressive due to the difficulty of his shoots because of his size and position. It is also necessary to say that the Chicago Bulls are the hottest team in the Eastern Conference. With the help of Gordon, the Bulls have clinched the 4th seed in the East and they currently hold the 3rd best record in their respective Conference.
Both of these players are great, and they are good friends as well. Scottie Pippen, a former Chicago Bulls player and a 6 time NBA Champion, says Gordon should be the recipient of this award and Jason Kidd, a former rookie of the Year says Okafor should be the "ROY" (Rookie of the Year). I believe that due to the difficulties surrounding the Bobcats and the development of his game Emeka Okafor is the best Rookie. What do ya’ll think?
posted by Anonymous at
3:25 PM
1 Comments:
Suppose two players are basically tied in terms of their on the court stats what factors can / or should weigh into the decision?
Should the team record matter or does this give too much influence to a single player's ability to win or lose games?
Who votes on ROY? If it's the sportwriters then how well liked a player is can matter, as well. For example, Jim Rice had a rotten relationship with the media and is not in the baseball hall of fame, when his statistics suggest he should be.
Who knows? Only time will tell.
By
John Topoleski, at 12:47 PM
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