ROY Update

The big news since my last entry is that Jabari Parker (Bucks) has blown out his knee and is done for the year.  I think I speak for all true basketball fans when I say: damn.  That kid was good and he was contributing right away to a team that was on the rise.  Terrible loss for the Bucks, they were seriously eye-balling a playoff spot in the East, that's gonna be tougher to pull off without Parker's minutes.  No Joel Embiid, no Julius Randle, Aaron Gordon hasn't played in over a month, and now no more Jabari Parker.  Sucks.

Also this is where Minutes Per Game becomes a tricky stat.  I'd been using Julius Randle (14.0) as my benchmark.  Perhaps I'll move on to pure Minutes Played to gauge which rookies are maintaining their impact.

The amount of rookies that have debuted this year is up to 63, adding Furkan Aldemir (Sixers) and Johnny O'Bryant (Bucks) getting some of Parker's minutes.

Top 22 in minutes played: Wiggins (Wolves), Payton (Magic), Parker (Bucks), Noel (Sixers), Bogdanovic (Nets), McDaniels (Sixers), LaVine (Wolves), Papanickolau (Rockets), Napier (Heat), Exum (Jazz), Mirotic (Bulls), Ingles (Jazz), Rudez (Pacers), Black (Rockets), Stauskas (Kings), Ennis (Heat), Hood (Jazz), Anderson (Spurs), Hairston (Hornets), Wear (Knicks), Harris (Cavs), Smart (Celtics).  (#23 Doug McDermott (Bulls) is out with an injury, that seems a good place to stop)

I reckon (barring injury) Wiggins, Payton and Noel will finish top 3 in Minutes Played and should all be top 5 in MPG.  (Parker's 29.5 MPG will surely finish in the top 5)  ROY looks to be Wiggins' to lose now.  Payton is exciting to watch but turns the ball over and hasn't shown a propensity to get W's and Noel is a good defender but will probably be a project offensively for a while.  Wiggins, on the other hand, knows who he is and his rookie year will be Wiggins getting his reps and coming back stronger.  With all the depth of this draft, its hard not to see Wiggins and Parker as the two most exciting players going forward.  I'd like to see Wiggins getting more than 1.3 assists per game, his 1-2 asst to turnover rate is not good though the rest of his numbers and the eye test on his defense are promising.

LaVine is climbing fast in his Minutes and his MPG.  The Wolves are loving their new rookie PG, how will he fit in when Rubio comes back?  Does this make Rubio expendable?  Does anyone want Rubio?  (Now that the Mavs have Rondo, probably not)

Smart missed some time with injuries, I suspect he'll be in the top ten of Minutes and MPG by the end of the year.  Without Rondo, there's nothing keeping Smart from getting plenty of minutes.  And if/when Aaron Gordon starts playing again, he'll go back to getting good minutes in the Magic rotation.

I expect Mirotic to keep getting good minutes because he is pretty good at everything, the kind of all-round player the Bulls live on.

Otherwise, it seems like all these guys are on an established glide path for production.