ROY Update

Missed last week but I'm back.  The NBA is up to 61 new debut players this year, adding CJ Wilcox (Clippers) and Mitch McGary (Thunder) since the last update blog post.  Julius Randle is still 20th in rookie MPG, who are the 19 ahead of him?

Wiggins (30.7), Noel (30.5), Parker (30.2), Bogdanovic (28.6), LaVine (25.5), Papanickolau (25.5), McDaniels (25.3), Payton (24.6), Napier (21.4), Mirotic (17.8), Exum (17.4), Hood (17.2), Ingles (17.0), Black (17.0), Rudez (16.7), Smart (16.4), Hairston (15.3), Gordon (15.0), Stauskas (14.1)

LaVine has made the most eye-opening jump.  In the two weeks since my last update LaVine has gone from 20.5 MPG to 25.5, a jump indicating that the Wolves are ready to rely on LaVine to spell the injured Ricky Rubio.  Speaking of the Wolves, Wiggins has jumped from 28.6 to 30.7 MPG in the last two weeks.  The youth movement seems to be coming along nicely in Minnesota though they have dropped to dead last in the West with only 1 win out of their last 9 games.  Hey, just makes the youth movement that much stronger, right?

In other youth movements around the league, Rodney Hood had gone from 14.5 two weeks ago to 17.2 this week, edging ahead of teammate Joe Ingles whose minutes have fallen slightly.  Ingles is an older player and not really meant to be part of the youth movement so it makes sense that Hood has seemingly made the jump to join Exum in the rookies needing minutes department.

Smart is back from injury and not yet getting the minutes he was earlier in the year.  Part of this is because the Celtics, while not getting a lot of wins, are a scrappy team that is improving at staying in games later, perhaps that contributes to less playing time for rookies.  I suspect that Smart's minutes will be back up next time I update this list and certainly by the end of the year; Smart needs to play and the Celtics know that to be the case.