Brandon Jennings and the Rookie of the Year

The NBA season is over and of course talk has ramped up about the seasonal awards. Let’s start with a quick recap of the awards, and my predictions:

MVP – Of course, there’s no real debate about this award – LeBron wins, though I’d put Durant as number 2.

Sixth man – Jamal Crawford. He shouldn’t even be eligible because the Hawks should have shot Mike Bibby months ago, but here we are.

Defensive player – Dwight Howard. No one dominates the defensive end like him.

Most improved player is ambiguous at best. Should it be unexpected improvement (Marc Gasol) or does Kevin Durant still qualify? In the end, I don’t even care enough to make a pick.

Coach of the Year – In my opinion, it should be between Nate McMillan and Scott Brooks. One overcame tons of injuries, and one got a young team to commit on defense and surprise everyone. I’d go with Nate, because he’s had a tougher road. The Thunder had the talent to be this good all along.

That brings us to the award I really wanted to talk about – Rookie of the Year. The race is both not as close as it should be (Evans vs Curry) and closer than it should be (Brandon Jennings.)

Starting with Brandon Jennings, I don’t think he should even be in the discussion. All the arguments for Jennings boils down to one flawed point: he’s “leading” a team that won 46 games and made the playoffs, whereas Evans and Curry are on teams that only won 51 games combined. Here’s the biggest issue with that argument: top rated rookies go to shitty teams, that’s how the NBA draft works. You cannot take a team’s overall success into consideration in the RoY award because of that. It’s not Jennings’ doing that he landed on a better team in an easier conference any more than it’s Evans or Curry’s fault that they ended up on crappy teams in a really tough conference. If you had put either Curry or Evans on the Bucks, they’d still be in the playoffs, and if you put Jennings on the Kings or Warriors, they’d still suck. So, taking that out of the equation, let’s look at Jennings’ pros and cons:

Pros – 55 point game, good free throw shooting (82%),

Cons – Terrible shooting that continuously got worse throughout the year (43%FG 50%3P in Sept/Oct, 38%FG 32%3P in Nov, 32%FG 35%3P in Dec, 31%FG 31%3P in Jan, 37.5%FG 36%3P in Feb/March),

Not so good assist to turnover ratio (2.35),

Second worst Adjusted FG% for all rookies (43%).

Jennings shot the Bucks to more losses than wins. He shot terribly, and still ended up taking more shots than any other rookie, while playing fewer minutes than Evans or Curry. I don’t care how well the Bucks were as a team, Jennings doesn’t deserve any votes for rookie of the year.

So, the decision comes down to Evans vs Curry. Evans was successful from day 1, while Curry came on stronger as the season went on. Their overall stats are very similar:

Evans – 20PPG, 5.8APG, 5.3RPG, 1.5SPG, 3TO, 46%FG

Curry – 17.5PPG, 5.9APG, 4.5RPG, 1.9SPG, 3TO, 46%FG

Drill down a bit and things spread out a bit:

Evans – 25.5% 3P, 75%FT

Curry – 44% 3P, 88.5%FT

So, they had similar stats, but Curry was more efficient. And, more importantly, Evans had no help at all. He had the ball in his hands all the time, but somehow only ended up with 2.5 more PPG than Curry. On the other hand, Curry had notorious ball hog Monta Ellis (22 FGA per game) next to him. I’d say that makes Curry’s year more impressive. Plus, as I mentioned at first, Curry got better throughout the year, Evans didn’t. Shouldn’t that come into play with a rookie? Yes, it’s impressive when a rookie can come in and play at a high level from day one, but even if that’s the case, shouldn’t he still get better? Consistency is good, but I want to see growth potential in my rookies.

So, as you can guess, I’m going with Curry for RoY.

LeBron and the Cavs

It’s the NBA season, so it’s time for a return of the carefully reasoned rants!

most people don’t share my dislike of LeBron and the Cavs, but here are my issues:

1) I hate the way LeBron plays. he is a freak athlete who is bigger, stronger, and faster than anyone else out there, so all he needs to do (and all he does) in big games is clear out his teammates and charge recklessly into the lane, because he will get the call. if everyone in the lane just jumped out of the way, LeBron would just run out of bounds because he’s not in control enough to actually finish without trucking someone.

2) Mike Brown is a terrible coach, because he fosters and encourages this behavior by LeBron. they lost to the Magic, because the rest of the team can be shut down, and LeBron can’t win by himself. The Celts reinforced that idea in game 1 this year, and the Raptors did the same in game 2.

it’s the Wilt Chamberlain vs Bill Russell theory. Bill knew that if you let Wilt do what he wanted, but focused on stopping the rest of the team, then Wilt would lose. and what happened there? Bill won 11 rings, and Wilt won 2 (only 1 during the course of Russell’s career).

which leads to:
3) the supporting cast in Cleveland is infinitely underwhelming, and easily beatable. without LeBron, that team struggles to make the playoffs in the EAST. strip away KG, and the Celts still make round 2 of the playoffs, take away Kobe, and i’m willing to bet the Lakers make round 2 as well. the Magic played without Jameer Nelson for a long stretch and still made the championship game.

the only real scoring threats outside LeBron are two extremely undersized guards in Delonte West and Mo Williams. Shaq and big Z are too old and slow. Anthony Parker is good, but shouldn’t be more than an outside shot specialist. and Varejao is a streaky energy guy at best.

any of the elite level teams can shut down all of those threats when they need to, and no matter what LeBron puts on the board, it won’t be enough.