Rookie award a jump ball
Is Zion Williamson going to steal Ja Morant’s award? You know, the award everyone handed to No. 1 overall pick Williamson before the season began, before he got hurt and missed a good chunk of the first half of the NBA season?
Morant, the No. 2 pick behind Williamson in last June’s NBA draft, has turned in a stellar first season (very few young high- usage guards shoot nearly 50 per cent from the floor the way Morant has at 49.3 per cent) and the young Memphis Grizzlies have exceeded expectations by winning 30 games and flirting with .500. Both players attack the rim mercilessly and both the Grizzlies and Williamson’s New Orleans Pelicans are fighting for the West’s final playoff spot.
Morant won rookie of the month honours for October, November, December and January, but was supplanted by Williamson in February after the Pelicans star averaged 25.7 points on 56 per cent shooting in nine games. During the month, Williamson became the first freshman since Michael Jordan to score at least 25 points on 57 per cent or better shooting in four consecutive games. For the year, he’s up to 24.1 points per game on nearly 60 per cent shooting, despite the fact New Orleans is keeping his minutes in check.
The only other real competition for rookie of the year has come from undrafted Miami guard Kendrick Nunn, who was named rookie of the month ( for the East) three times, before Chicago’s Coby White was announced as February’s winner on Tuesday.
Overall, this hasn’t been a great rookie crop, with a pair of undrafted players ( Nunn and Toronto’s Terence Davis being among the top six or seven newcomers), but at the top, the 1-2 punch of Williamson and Morant is as good as we’ve seen in ages.
The question now is whether Williamson can supplant Morant for the award. If he dominates March and April and New Orleans gets into the playoffs, he’ll surely win. But if Memphis stays in eighth place and Morant shakes his recent mini-slump, he could pull off the upset.
The best player on a bad team? Has to be Washington’s Bradley Beal, right? Beal didn’t make the all-star game, despite his eye-popping numbers, mostly because the Wizards have been awful.
Beal has averaged nearly a point a minute ( 36.9 points in 37.1 minutes) over his last 15 games, helping Washington to compile a 7- 8 record over that span, far better than its prior rate of success.
Much of this run has come since Beal’s all- star snub.
Though Washington is 1- 9 when Beal scores 40 or more points, the team is 9- 9 over its last 18 games when he has scored 25 points or more. He’s second in the league in scoring overall.