ROY Update

Up to 71 debuts this year now including Tyler Johnson (Heat), James McAdoo (Warriors), JaMychel Green (Spurs), Larry Drew (Sixers), Langston Galloway (Knicks) and Elijah Millsap (Jazz)

Julius Randle has slipped to 28th in Rookie MPG, let's look at the top 16: Wiggins (33.6), Noel (30.1), Galloway (29.6), Parker (29.5), Payton (27.7), McDaniels (26.1), LaVine (22.8), Bogdanovic (22.4), Smart (22.2), Napier (20.8), Papanikolau (20.0), Millsap (19.9), Exum (19.7), Drew (19.6), Ingles (19.6) and Hood (18.3)

Three eye-opening additions to the Rookie MPG list: Langston Galloway in only 10 games has already risen to 3rd in Rookie PPG and at a pretty good percentage, looks like a legit scorer for the Knicks;  Elijah Millsap in only 12 games for the Jazz is already getting more usage than Exum, Ingles and Hood...ouch!;  Larry Drew is getting minutes for the Sixers (well, it was either another rookie or go find an actual NBA player) but I'm not seeing anything in his numbers that indicate that he'll remain long on this list.

Wiggins, Noel and Payton are still firmly ensconced as the top three (remaining) ROY candidates with Jabari Parker still hanging in at 4th place in MPG.

McDaniels and LaVine are two slow starters that have cemented their rotations spots (McDaniels by being a high energy athlete on a very young roster; LaVine by getting the lion's share of injured Ricky Rubio's minutes).

Smart is rising again in MPG.  With Rondo and Green (and hell even Jameer Nelson and Nate Robinson) out of the way, Smart has plenty of minutes to himself.  I expect he'll get even more, as he's shown himself to be a surprisingly effective 3pt shooter and a pretty good assist/turnover ratio.

Bogdanovic, Papanickolau and Napier are firmly in their rotations as they have been pretty much since the beginning of the year.

I'm a little surprised that Mirotic (#18) and Hairston (#24) aren't higher, seems like those guys are always playing whenever I check out the Bulls and Hornets.

And Aaron Gordon is fully back from his injury, even getting starter minutes for the Magic, so I expect his MPG will be higher by year's end.

As of now your 2014-15 Rookie of the Year belongs to Andrew Wiggins (Wolves).  Barring injury (of course) the award is his to lose.  Noel and Payton are good solid players but Wiggins has really become a dynamic offensive player, a guy you wanna watch night after night.  I still think Jabari Parker may well be the most impressive player (and will probably get some votes despite playing only 25 games) but Wiggins is going to log the minutes and accumulate the stats to net him the award, it looks like.

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.