Forget the record: Deandre Ayton should absolutely win Rookie of the Year
By Adam Maynes
The Phoenix Suns only won 19 games last season and usually a record like that prevents individuals from receiving awards love. However, it shouldn’t prevent Deandre Ayton from winning Rookie of the Year.
The NBA announced their 2018-19 Rookie of the Year finalists on May 17, (the league’s award show is on June 24), and the three names that you thought would be on that list were – Luka Doncic, Trae Young, and first overall pick Deandre Ayton of the Phoenix Suns.
Many Suns fans hoped that not only would Ayton potentially be a 20/10 guy in his rookie year but that his addition alone would have lead to significantly more wins than the season before when Phoenix only won 21.
Instead, Ayton “only” averaged 16.3p to go with his 10.3r – and the Suns lost two more games than they won in 2017-18.
With potential MVP candidates, that sort of a drop in regular season record alone would disqualify players from winning that award, and for many NBA fans, it has probably disqualified Ayton from RoY in their minds.
However, unlike the MVP where there is an expectation of a winning record and a playoff appearance to be considered among the best players in the entire league (and generally a top-three team in a Conference), the Rookie of the Year award is entirely based on individual statistics and the recipient has never once been demanded of being on one of the best teams in the Association.
Unfortunately for Ayton, the two rookie guards who received the most hype this past season both played on teams who made regular season strides in their team’s records (Luka Doncic‘s Dallas Mavericks improved from 24 to 33 wins while Trae Young‘s Atlanta Hawks rose a more moderate amount, from 24 to 29 wins – and it should always be taken into consideration that he plays in the much weaker Eastern Conference, which makes Dallas’ improvement all that much more impressive compared to Atlanta’s).