2014-15 NBA Rookie of the Year

21 rookies played 1000 minutes this year.  Here they are by age.

19: Wiggins (2k+) (Wolves), LaVine (Wolves), Exum (Jazz)
20: Payton (2k+) (Magic), Noel (2k+) (Sixers), Smart (Celtics), Grant (Sixers), Nurkic (Nuggets)
21: McDaniels (Sixers/Rockets), Sampson (Sixers), Stauskus (Kings)
22: Clarkson (Lakers), Hood (Jazz)
23: Mirotic (Bulls), Galloway (Knicks), Black (Rockets/Lakers), Napier (Heat)
24: Ennis (Heat)
25: Bogdanovic (Nets)
27: Ingles (Jazz)
28: Rudez (Pacers)

I'm a stickler for usage (Minutes Played, Minutes Per, Games Played).  Your three top candidates for Rookie of the Year (Wiggins, Noel, Payton) played the most minutes, I think that is no coincidence. For the MVP Award or 6th Man or even Coach, I think it is important to prize usage above all, efficiency next: we must respect the work performed and respect the surplus value of stars and players, to go beyond to the numbers to reward the intangibles of hard work.  Those awards are backward, not forward, looking.

But for Rookie of the Year I don't think it matters so much to compare the years they just had.  The other awards are about rigorously comparing the accumulated awesomeness of the past season to see who was the best.  But ROY should be about looking to the future, this is an award of future projection not past performance.

A pro pos: Andrew Wiggins clearly and easily had the finest year of any of this rookie class, there were other fine players but no rookie can honestly say they had as productive a year as Wiggins.  That said, Wiggins wasn't an all-star this year.  The Wolves were fun to watch but they're still looking to add another #1 pick to their roster.  They didn't win many games or come close to winning many games.  Wiggins, as good as he was, did little to move the needle for the Wolves team on the court.  Nor did he dominate all-star voting or receive any DPOY or MVP votes.  He had a fine season but for the purposes of ROY, it is more important to note that he had a promising season.  That is the ROY, no?  The most promising going forward, the top prospect of this class.  I anticipate Wiggins will win the award (probably by a ton) and I think that's a reasonable choice.

But in the world of promising, I can say I saw enough of Jabari Parker in 25 games to think that he could be (and I think will be) a better player than Wiggins.  I reckon Parker will get some 3rd place votes, I wouldn't be shocked or appalled to see him get 1st place votes, I think he earned a few even in a diminished season.  Wiggins had the better year, he played 50 more games than Parker and that's awesome, but the ROY isn't about productivity so far, it's about promise going forward.  I think Parker is every bit as promising going forward.

I suspect Julius Randle will hit the ground running next year and have a fine, perhaps even Wiggins-like, campaign.  (Damn, Julius had his rookie season just handed to him...no Nash, no Kobe, no Pau, no one else to shoot the ball, take over games and NO EXPECTATIONS at all.  He could've sucked and still been a hero.  Damn shame to see a young athlete in his prime spending time off the (court) especially when it was all laid out for him to just play basketball)  But he won't get to call himself a rookie next year (14 minutes played in 2014-15), so Randle is of this class.  Can we say that he is promising?  Yeah but 14 minutes isn't enough to really be certain.  Whereas I saw plenty of Jabari's minutes (probably watched damn near all of them, Bucks were my favorite League Pass before New Year's) to think he can play in this league and contribute to a good team.

Should Randle get votes?  I say no.  We saw none of Embiid (he'll be a ROY candidate next year) and while we may say he is promising, I have now seen Embiid's competition while seeing no more of Embiid.  I saw enough Parker to know that kid can play.  Randle, on the other hand, is basically no different in prospect-ness than Embiid: I still see him in his college uni, he is not yet a pro to me.

All that said...I can't take Parker as ROY.  I've got to go with Wiggins.  Not necessarily the all round best of this class at every phase of the game but in the discussion in all phases of the game.  My only knock on his numbers: his asst:to is actually pretty terrible.  You don't need big asst numbers from him but you're expecting the offense to run through him at all times, he's gonna get a lot of touches, he needs to become more sure with the ball.  His shooting will improve, his rebounding and defense will improve, his ball handling, his decision-making needs to improve; physically he showed he's got all the tools, its as sharp and lucky as he can make himself that will determine his relative awesomeness.

I will take Parker 2nd.  For all the reasons I kept hinting at above: he's got promise.  He can handle himself in the lane, he can score, he can rebound, good shot blocker, good on-ball defender, he's got size and speed and uniqueness to his game.  He didn't play as many minutes or have as productive a season as Wiggins or Payton or Noel but going forward, I am more comfortable saying that Parker will be a great player than I would be about, say, Payton or Noel.  I think all three will be fine players but Parker looks to have the highest ceiling.

I'll take Payton 3rd and Noel 4th.  My pre-season pick was that Payton and Noel would split the award (I couldn't choose, I assumed the world wouldn't be able to either).  My rationale was the same for both: they'd get plenty of playing time and they'd be able to play their own games, they wouldn't have to fit into some crazy scheme on the court (or some uncomfortable media narrative off the court).  I thought Payton and Noel would both be able to flourish by just playing basketball.  I was kinda right.  They both had fine rookie seasons in the roles I imagined for them.  They were productive and promising.  That said, I think Payton is a Rondo-style PG in an increasingly non-Rondo-friendly uiniverse, I hope he can pick up his FG%, 3p%, FT% and become a dangerous scorer in addition to his ball-movement skills.  We'll see if he can add dimensions to his game.  I thought Noel could be a DPOY-type player and I think we saw some of that this year.  He's a natural born shotblocker, an eraser in front of the rim, and a top notch rebounder, I questioned how much he would score and we can perhaps hope that he'll pick up his FT% and become a little more confident around the rim.  He's got the body, he had a fine rookie year, I think his defensive skills will make him a feared player (and coveted free agent) though I'm confident Wiggins and Jabari will be better scorers.

#5-#7: Smart (needs to improve his efficiency but so energetic, lightning rod, a hustler, teams need guys like that), LaVine (sloppy but that kid can play, highlight reel athletic, good ball handler, good passer, nice defender), Mirotic (not great at anything but pretty good at everything, confident shooter, variable on both ends of the court, teams needs guys like that).

#8: I'll take Randle.  In some sense what ROY is who's gonna have the best 2nd season?  Which guy shone out enough this year to make us think he's gonna be awesome next year?  Randle will always be compared to these guys and I think he'll have a Wiggins-like season next year for the Lakers (certain about one thing: the Lakers will be a vastly different team next year, not sure they'll be good but they'll be different), which would be pretty good.  I liked a lot of rookies but I think Randle's upside could still be pretty good.

After that I just had vague categories to put guys in.

Pretty sure they can play (not necessarily stars but they look to be good contributors, regular rotation guys who maybe could still blow up): Exum (Jazz), Clarkson (Lakers), Bogdanovic (Nets), McDaniels (Rockets), Galloway (Knicks), McGary (Thunder), Nurkic (Nuggets), Jerami Grant (Sixers), Napier (Heat),  Hood (Jazz), Aaron Gordon (Magic), Stauskus (Kings), Ennis (Heat), Ingles (Jazz), Rudez (Pacers), Tyler Johnson (Heat), Capela (Rockets), Payne (Wolves)

Maybe they can play, I dunno (some of these guys will catch on, some won't): Dinwiddie (Pistons), Lauvargne (Nuggets), Gary Harris (Nuggets), Young (Celtics), Wear (Knicks), Hairston (Hornets), Warren (Suns), Vonleh (Hornets), Brown (Nets), Millsap (Jazz), Aldemir (Sixers), McDermott (Bulls), Sampson (Sixers), Papanikolau (Rockets), Joe Harris (Cavs)

I have no idea (a lot of these guys will be out of the league 1 year from now, some of them will keep getting dem checks, some may even become fo-real-ass regular pro ballers...couldn't tell you which ones): Jefferson (Nets), Early (Knicks), Bairstow (Bulls), Adams (Grizzlies), Kirk (Cavs), Smith (Pelicans), Johnson (Rockets), Dawkins (Heat), Marble (Magic), Anderson (Spurs), Cherry (Cavs), Green (Nuggets), Gordon (Sixers), Whittington (Pacers), Robinson (Wolves), Stokes (Grizzlies), Zoran Dragic (Heat), Powell (Celtics), Moreland (Kings), Lucas (Grizzlies), Jerrett (Thunder), Wilcox (Clippers), O'Bryant (Bucks), Christopher (Jazz), McAdoo (Warriors), Green (Spurs), Drew (Sixers), Benimon (Jazz), Cooley (Jazz), Stockton (Kings), Cotton (Jazz), Frazier (Sixers), Bhullar (Kings), McNeal (Suns), David Wear (Kings), Kilpatrick (Wolves), Brown (Lakers)