Hardwood Paroxysm: 7 young players we’re excited to watch in 2015-16

Redux of the Year

Jared Dubin (@JADubin5) — Co-EIC

There was a clear front-runner for Rookie of the Year 25 games into last season, and it wasn’t the eventual winner, Andrew Wiggins. No, it was No. 2 overall pick Jabari Parker.

Through the early part of the season, Parker was averaging 12.3 points per game on 49 percent shooting, doing the exact kind of Jabari Parker things we expected him to do. And then he tore his ACL, and we were robbed of seeing not only his final 57 regular season games, but also how he’d perform in the playoffs.

The Bucks soared even without him, improving from 17 wins to 41 in a single season. They made the postseason, where they gave the Bulls a pretty good run even after going down 3-0. Khris Middleton became a bona fide sub-star. Giannis became a Vine hero. John Henson emerged as a valuable contributor. O.J. Mayo came back from the dead (kind of). Jason Kidd turned one of the league’s youngest teams into one of its best defenses.

But in the playoffs, their lack of a go-to scorer came back to bite them. So this offseason, they signed Greg Monroe. He’s a low-post anchor, but they Bucks will still need Parker’s off-the-bounce game to complement what they get from him, plus the weirdness they Giannis brings and the outside shooting Middleton provides, especially in lineups fronted by Michael Carter-Williams.

Parker has the luxury of stepping into a team that already found success in his absence, so he doesn’t have to carry the weight of the franchise on his shoulders. That’s a very unusual position for a No. 2 pick to find himself in, and it should help him succeed in what’s basically a re-do of his rookie year.

Next: Nik Stauskas