Tyreke Evans will be named the NBA’s 2009-10 Rookie of the Year later this week, Sactown Royalty has learned.
The announcement is expected Thursday or Friday. The Kings nor the NBA have announced Evans’s victory, and the team has not yet alerted the media of a press conference later this week.
I think this is a two-man race between Evans and Jennings. Evans’ numbers are better than Curry’s and his team is a little better, so if we’re going to go with a good player on a bad team, it should be Evans.
As for Jennings, his case depends how much importance we place on a team’s record and how responsible the player is for that record. It’s funny — a good record is crucial in winning the league MVP, but for ROY, it doesn’t seem to matter all that much. Why is that?
In the end, I think Evans will win Rookie of the Year. Given the history of the award, if a player clearly has the superior numbers, winning just doesn’t matter. That’s the case here.
Evans averaged 20.1 points, 5.3 rebounds and 5.8 assists to become the first rookie since LeBron James to average 20-5-5 in his rookie season. (Oscar Robertson and Michael Jordan are the only other players to accomplish this feat.)
Both Evans and Curry posted eye-popping numbers, but did any rookie have a bigger impact on the 2009-10 NBA season than Brandon Jennings? Even though his FG% fell off a cliff, he still posted pretty good numbers, and guided the upstart Bucks to the #6 playoff spot in the East.
Based on the criteria that picked previous award winners, Evans is very deserving. But when we look back on this season’s rookie class, I think we’ll remember Jennings’ leadership, Evans’ 20-5-5, Curry’s stretch run and Blake Griffin’s knee injury, in that order.
It’s that time of year again. Let’s try to figure out who will win this year’s Rookie of the Year…
Brandon Jennings jumped out in the ROY race with a 22-4-6 average in October and November, while shooting 43% from the field and 50% from three-point land. This included an epic 55-point outing against the Golden State Warriors in which Jennings hit 21 of 34 shots, including 7-for-8 from behind the arc. Since then, he is averaging 14-3-6 and is shooting just 35% from the field and 36% from 3PT. He has struggled with scoring from inside the arc, but he leads all rookies in assists and has a pretty nice assist-to-turnover ratio — 2.41, but he has posted a 2.72 ratio since the start of December. Maybe most importantly, the Bucks are 41-32 and are in the #5 spot in the East.
Tyreke Evans overtook Jennings with a 22-5-5 December and hasn’t looked back. On the season, he is averaging 20-5-6, and is shooting 46% from the field. He’s on the verge of joining LeBron James, Michael Jordan and Oscar Robertson as the only players to average 20-5-5 in their rookie seasons. However, the Kings have the 6th-worst record in the league and have been out of the playoff hunt for some time. This is both good and bad for Evans’ stats. On one hand, the Kings are so bad that he has to be the clear focal point of the offense — unlike Jennings, he doesn’t have to get the ball to Andrew Bogut or John Salmons — but the fact that the Kings are so bad means that defenses can focus on stopping him.
And then there’s Stephen Curry, whom NBA.com’s Drew Packham lists first in his rookie rankings. Since the start of December, he has averaged 18-5-6, while shooting 47% from the field and 44% from long range. And he keeps getting better. In February and March, he averaged 21-5-7. But at 21-52, the Warriors are even worse than the Kings. In fact, Golden State is tied for second third in fewest wins this season.
One thing that pure averages don’t account for is a team’s pace (i.e. the average # of possessions a team has during the course of a game). Is it fair to compare Jennings’ numbers to Curry’s when the Bucks are #18 in overall pace and the Warriors are #1? Using the league average of 95.15 possessions, here is a look at the pace-adjusted numbers for each player, along with John Hollinger’s PER:
All due respect to Mr. Packham, I think this is a two-man race between Evans and Jennings. Evans’ numbers are better than Curry’s and his team is a little better, so if we’re going to go with a good player on a bad team, it should be Evans.
As for Jennings, his case depends how much importance we place on a team’s record and how responsible the player is for that record. It’s funny — a good record is crucial in winning the league MVP, but for ROY, it doesn’t seem to matter all that much. Why is that?
In the end, I think Evans will win Rookie of the Year. Given the history of the award, if a player clearly has the superior numbers, winning just doesn’t matter. That’s the case here.
For most of the collegiate season, it looked like John Wall was the only player deserving of the #1 pick — like a franchise would be crazy not to take him if it won the lottery. But as Evan Turner has come on — 20-9-6 with 52% shooting — and is pushing Wall for the Naismith award, it has become a reasonable possibility that a team that already has a good point guard might pass on Wall and take Turner (who projects to play off guard or small forward in the NBA) instead.
David Thorpe lists the Timberwolves (Jonny Flynn, Ricky Rubio), Warriors (Monta Elllis, Stephen Curry), Kings (Tyreke Evans), Sixers (Jrue Holiday), Jazz (Deron Williams) and the Bulls (Derrick Rose) as teams with lottery picks that could potentially go with Turner over Wall.
Wall is two years younger and doesn’t have Turner’s injury history. (Turner broke his back earlier in the season. Yeah. Broke his back.) The two shoot about the same from three-point range and are both good playmakers. To me, they both resemble Dwyane Wade, though Turner is longer and Wall is more athletic (of the two).
This is no indictment of Wall. Turner has played himself into this position with a brilliant season. Wall is two years younger so he has more upside, but they both project to be great NBA players, so if a franchise is already sitting on a very good point guard, it makes some sense to go with Turner.
Consider the Kings, for instance. They had a coveted star in Kevin Martin, $13 million in expiring contracts belonging to Kenny Thomas, Sergio Rodriguez, Hilton Armstrong, Ime Udoka and Sean May, and $1.6 million in cap room to do an unbalanced trade. They should have been controlling the entire game on deadline day.
Unfortunately, they didn’t choose to play. Sacramento didn’t let teams know Martin was available, and in fact insisted he wasn’t available; unlike Phoenix with Stoudemire, the Kings have no idea if Houston’s offer was the best one they could have had. In fact, there’s considerable evidence they could have done much better — possibly by bypassing the Rockets entirely.
Consider, for starters, what would have been the perfect home for Martin: Boston. The Kings could have sent Martin and little-used Andres Nocioni to the Celtics for Ray Allen and a first-round pick, and cleared $18 million in cap room (the Celtics, given their current time horizon, would have blurted out yes to this offer in a nanosecond).
They then could have used Allen and Kenny Thomas in a deal with the Knicks and walked away with the exact same trove of assets that the Rockets did. If so, Sacramento wouldn’t have Landry, but look at what they’d have instead: Jordan Hill, New York’s 2012 first-rounder, Boston’s 2011 first-rounder, the right to swap picks with New York in 2011 (admittedly, an item of more value to Houston given the two clubs’ likely records next season), and the same cap room they cleared with the Martin trade.
The only reason they don’t have those assets, it would appear, is that they didn’t ask. While the Kings fiddled, Houston forced the action and squeezed all it could from New York. When the Knicks wouldn’t flinch, the Rockets scrambled to get alternate deals in place: first an all-smoke, no-fire rumor with Chicago, and then a late deal with Sacramento that both pried Martin free and thrust the Knicks into action.
That story echoes a fairly constant background noise that’s been heard about Sacramento in recent years. The Kings have a small front office and nearly everybody in it has been there forever; one gets the impression not that they’ve lost their basketball acumen, but that they aren’t putting in the legwork anymore.
That Martin/Nocioni-for-Allen swap and subsequent trade with the Knicks is an interesting angle on this year’s trade deadline. By not making it known that Martin was available, the Kings didn’t get everyone’s best offer. Conversely, the Suns did hear everyone’s best offer or Stoudemire, and chose not to pull the trigger.
The Knicks will acquire McGrady and Sergio Rodriguez from Sacramento, sources said.
The Rockets get Kevin Martin, Jordan Hill and Jared Jeffries from New York and will have the right to swap first-round picks with New York in 2011 as well as take on New York’s 2012 first-round pick.
Sacramento obtains Houston’s Carl Landry and Joey Dorsey and New York’s Larry Hughes.
This differs from the Rockets/Kings deal I wrote about earlier in that Houston will take on Jeffries’ contract next season and in return get a prospect (Jordan Hill) the right to move up in the 2011 draft. In addition, the Rockets get the Knicks’ pick in 2012. I love this trade from Houston’s perspective.
The Knicks get to see if T-Mac has anything left in the tank and a decent young point guard in Sergio Rodriguez (6 points/3 assists in 13 minutes of PT for the Kings). More importantly, they free up enough cap space (~$30 million) two sign two big-name free agents this summer.
I’m not sure why the Kings wanted to get the Knicks involved. They’re taking on Hughes contract for this season, so I guess it will save them the trouble of buying T-Mac out.
…the Kings and Rockets have agreed in principle to a deal that would send Kevin Martin and three other players to Houston in return for McGrady and forwards Carl Landry and Joey Dorsey.
But that might just be the start.
As the teams hammer out the details today, there are reports the Knicks are still involved, intent on landing McGrady and unloading Jared Jeffries.
If no deal with the Knicks is made, the Rockets and Kings are still expected to go through with the swap.
The Rockets couldn’t come to terms with the Knicks because they were reluctant to take on Jared Jeffries’ contract without owning the Knicks’ future first rounders. They’ve reportedly coveted Martin all along, so when he became available, they went out and struck a deal with the Kings.
If it stays simply a Sacramento-Houston deal, the Rockets will have essentially landed Martin at the cost of Carl Landry and the undead body of Tracy McGrady. While Houston fans will be sad to see Landry go, they’ll be getting a dynamic shooting guard and one of the best scorers in the game. Alongside Aaron Brooks, the Rockets will have one of the great young backcourts in the league.
And the amazing thing is that it doesn’t appear that the Rockets will take on any long-term contracts other than Martin’s.
As for the Kings, they wanted a big man for Martin and they got a pretty good one in Landry, who is averaging 16-6 with 55% shooting. I’m not sure how he fits in with Jason Thompson and Omri Casspi, but he’s probably better than Thompson and Casspi can play small forward, so there should be room for all three. If the Kings are able to move T-Mac to New York, they’ll likely have to take on Jared Jeffries’ contract — he’s owed $6.9 million for next season — and will probably get a draft pick as well.
If the Knicks can clear Jeffries from the payroll, they’ll have enough cap space to sign two big name free agents this summer.
The trade deadline is just a week away, so I thought it would be fun to play puppet master and propose a few blockbuster trades that should happen, but probably won’t. Let’s start with the least likely and work our way to the most credible. (Honestly, I had this idea before I hit the ESPN NBA page this morning and saw Chad Ford’s similar piece. Don’t worry, we don’t suggest any of the same trades.) Click on the link to see each trade in the ESPN Trade Machine.
1. Amare Stoudemire for David Lee
To make the salaries work, the Knicks would also include Jared Jeffries and Chris Duhon in the deal. Why the Knicks should do it: Stoudemire had his best years under Mike D’Antoni and would welcome a reunion. He’s also a big name that would encourage another superstar to join the franchise this summer, and he’s more likely to re-sign with the Knicks because New York is the media capital of the world. They’d also benefit from clearing Jeffries’ salary from the books, leaving around $13 million in cap space to sign a big name (assuming Stoudemire does NOT opt out of the final year of his deal). Why the Suns should do it: David Lee is a great fit for the Suns’ up-tempo system and he’s almost as good as Stoudemire (PER: 22.1 vs. Amare’s 20.2) at about 60% of the cost. Phoenix would pay a little more this season and have to take on Jeffries’ contract, but they’d have a young All-Star caliber power forward to build around. If they stand pat and Amare opts out, they stand to lose him with nothing to show for it, as they only would have around $4 million in cap space if Amare bolts. Why it won’t happen: Phoenix won’t want to take on Jeffries’ contract for next season without a commitment from Lee to re-sign for a reasonable salary. He was asking for $10 million per season last summer, but his price is probably going up after making a push for the All-Star Game in 2010.
For starters, the Kings lack a great incentive to rush into anything before the trade deadline. Martin and Evans have played only nine games as a tandem, and the Kings would like to get a much longer look at the duo before rushing into any landscape-shifting moves. Second, Sacramento is enjoying its first small taste of success after an awful 2008-09 campaign and is hesitant to make any moves that would upset its momentum.
But mostly, the Kings don’t seem anxious to do anything because both the players and the organization think the pairing can work.
“Kevin isn’t himself yet,” Kings coach Paul Westphal said. “He just needs his timing to get a little better and get some of the rust off, and it’s going to be a really tough backcourt to deal with.”
Both players recognize that they’re going to have to make changes in their games to make the partnership flourish.
“I don’t have a mind frame to go out there and score 30 anymore,” said Martin, who seemed notably more active defensively after basically being a one-man offense last season. “[I'm] just trying to do other things, have more assists and get other teammates involved. While I was out, guys developed, and they’re good players. I show my respect by getting them involved, and [I'll] attack when it’s there.”
Less than a month ago, I wondered aloud about the possibility of Evans playing small forward, and I still think that’s a viable idea. Evans’ length makes up for his relative lack of height and there’s no reason that the Kings should stick with the mindset that their best penetrator also has to bring the ball up and initiate the offense. Think a smaller LeBron.
So, maybe the Kings should try a lineup of Beno Udrih-Martin-Evans-Omri Casspi and Spencer Hawes or Jon Brockman and see how it goes. With Evans, Martin and Casspi, the Kings have a nice (albeit perimeter) core to build around. If they could find a true back-to-the-basket center (like Chris Kaman, Pau Gasol or Al Jefferson) and a bigger point guard who can hit the three and take on some of the perimeter defensive duties (like Kirk Hinrich or Rodney Stuckey), they’d really be in business.
