NBA All-Rookie teams a joke
By Todd Salem
For months now, everyone has been saying how bad this past season’s crop of NBA rookies was. We knew it was bad at the draft when the guy who went first was a surprise and the guy most expected to go first was going to sit out most of the season, if not all of it.
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When Michael Carter-Williams won the 2013 Rookie of the Year, it was bad, but it was worse that no one else was deserving.
Well, if that award wasn’t bad enough, the announcement of the All-Rookie first and second teams is something to behold. It is actually a bit unsettling if I am being honest. The 10 players given this distinction are perhaps the 10 worst ever awarded anything for NBA excellence.
The All-Rookie second team is made up of the following bodies: Kelly Olynyk, Giannia Antetokounmpo, Gorgui Dieng, Cody Zeller and Steven Adams. Besides being awfully hard to spell, these guys were nothing more than bench and rotation guys for their respective teams.
Olynyk was a non-factor in rim protection for Boston, even though he stands seven feet tall.
Giannis averaged fewer than seven points per game and cannot shoot.
Minnesota thought so highly of Dieng that he didn’t even start playing consistently until March.
Zeller and Adams were sparingly used all year, each averaging less than 18 minutes per game and accumulating personal fouls at a higher rate than anything else.
And these were the guys MOST deserving of second-team honors.
As Bill Simmons famously wishes the league would do with the MVP award, couldn’t they have not handed out All-Rookie team this season and rolled it over to next year?