Joel Embiid was the NBA’s Rookie of the Year

Last night, the NBA had its first-ever awards show and it was a good night for the Milwaukee Bucks. Giannis Antetokounmpo was named the NBA’s most-improved player. Antetokounmpo’s teammate Malcolm Brogdon made history in more ways than one. The University of Virginia product became the first player who was not drafted in the first round to win the league’s Rookie of the Year award in the common-draft era. He also became the first player to win the award without ever winning Rookie of the Month in his own conference.

Seems crazy that the recipient of the Rookie of the Year award could never be named the best rookie in his conference in any single month, right? That’s because it is. Brogdon beat out Sixers teammates Joel Embiid and Dario Saric for the award. To be nice, this year’s rookie class was weak. Embiid had the best numbers by far, but played just 31 games in 2016-17. Saric’s averages for the season were still better than Brogdon’s, but the Croatian came on late in the year and for most of the first half of the season was an average player for the Sixers. Brogdon was a bench player for most of the season for Milwaukee starting in just 28 of the 75 games he played in. These were the three finalists for the award.

In a year where no rookie stood out during the entire season, Embiid only playing 31 out of 82 games should not have been the reason he did not win. His 20.2 points per game almost exactly doubled Brogdon’s 10.2 for the season. Embiid also averaged 7.8 rebounds per game and 2.5 blocks per game. His blocks per game were more than any player other than Rudy Gobert. The only rookies to ever match Embiid’s rookie year per game averages in points, rebounds and blocks were Tim Duncan, Alonzo Mourning, Hakeem Olajuwon, Shaquille O’Neal, David Robinson and Ralph Sampson.

                                                            Mitchell Leff/Getty Images

While all six of those big men played more than 31 games in their rookie years, all of them also averaged far more minutes per game as rookies than Embiid’s 25.4. For Embiid to put up those averages for the season, while playing on just over half the game each night, makes it seem insane that anyone else would win Rookie of the Year, especially someone that had a season like Brogdon had. None of the previously mentioned hall of fame caliber big men had range out to the three-point line. Embiid also shot 36.7 percent from beyond the arc this past season.

Then consider Brogdon was on the floor for more minutes per game, 26.4, than Embiid and it really is astounding that an average season like Brogdon’s would be rewarded just because it was a full season over Embiid’s injury-shortened season. This past season proved exactly what every scout and draft expert claimed about Embiid three years ago when the Sixers selected him third overall. He is a player that can do just about everything on the floor and someone that has a chance to be a generational talent, provided he stays healthy. He showed just about all his ability this season, but also got hurt again. However, there just wasn’t anyone even close to as impactful as Embiid was when he was on the floor this season, which is why playing only 31 games should not have been held against him. It says a lot about the type of player Embiid is for him to be that good with such little playing time. Had he played the rest of the season, and been surprisingly poor, his numbers for the entire year are almost certainly still better than Brogdon’s and he probably wins the award. Therefore, it seems odd that Brogdon’s quantity would trump Embiid’s quality. But, one thing’s for sure. If Embiid can stay healthy, he’ll have a much better career than Brogdon, which in the end, is all that matters.

Photo: http://bleacherreport.com/articles/2676252-joel-embiid-is-already-on-the-cusp-of-being-an-elite-nba-center

NBA's competitive balance problem only getting worse

It’s the same teams contending every year. The regular season doesn’t mean anything. Simulate the postseason to the finals.

These are all things certain sports fans say about the National Basketball Association. It’s hard to argue with, but it’s still commendable that certain teams, led by certain superstars, find their way back to the conference finals and NBA Finals most years. Instead of reading Twitter arguments about LeBron James or Michael Jordan, it’s better just to sit back and respect the kind of career James is putting together having been to the NBA Finals for seven straight seasons and eight times total.

Fans that use James’ move from Cleveland to Miami as an example of the beginning of the NBA becoming increasingly more predictable are simply misguided. After all, his Heat teams still lost two of the four NBA Finals they appeared in and had to rally to win a miraculous game 6 in 2013 against San Antonio and then come back and win a seventh game. So which teams played in the finals may have been easy to predict, but who would win was a coin flip more often than not. This carried over when James went back home to Cleveland in 2014 and his Cavaliers did battle with the Golden State Warriors in the 2015 and 2016 NBA Finals. Sure enough, Golden State won in 2015 and Cleveland won last year.

Then, something big happened. That something was Kevin Durant’s decision to leave Oklahoma City and join Golden State. Everyone knows the story by now. Durant’s Thunder held a 3-1 series held in the Western Conference Finals against Golden State only to drop games 5, 6 and 7 and allow the Warriors, who posted a record 73 wins in the regular season to advance to the NBA Finals. While the Warriors then squandered a 3-1 lead of their own in the NBA Finals, it was evident that the Warriors did not need Durant and Durant did not need the Warriors. Golden State still had a title from 2015 and Durant’s Thunder had pushed the Warriors to the precipice of elimination last season.

Now the Warriors have returned to the top with Durant on their side after defeating Cleveland in five games in this year’s NBA Finals. The NBA’s imbalance of power reached a new level this season and while Durant and Stephen Curry could both hit the open market in a matter of weeks, as well as Klay Thompson next summer, it’s highly unlikely that Golden State’s nucleus disintegrates just as its presumptive dynasty begins. With several stars under the age of 30, it’s no secret Golden State figures to be just as good in years to come as it was this season.

                                      Nhat V. Meyer/Bay Area News Group

All that said, who can blame the Warriors for assembling what many have called the greatest team ever? As easy as it can be to dislike them, Golden State identified talent in the draft going back to when it drafted Curry 7^th overall in 2009, and continued to build organically all the way to a championship in 2015 and then the most wins ever in a regular season in 2016, which ultimately led to acquiring Durant. It’s a model of team building that every team in the NBA should aspire to emulate. The NBA has always been driven by its star players and teams with multiple stars are the ones that win championships often. With the dominance the Warriors are displaying, owners and general managers across the NBA should be happy that the proposed draft lottery reform failed to earn the necessary majority when it was put to a vote prior to the 2014-15 NBA season. Such lottery reform would have made it more difficult for the worst teams to acquire the top picks in the draft, which for many teams is the only way to realistically add stars in hopes of one day contending for a title. Commissioner Adam Silver may not like the fact that it’s in the best interest of certain teams to lose a ton of games, but for those teams, it’s almost certainly the easiest way to obtaining a franchise cornerstone which continues to be paramount in the NBA.

In the end, it all comes back to Durant’s decision to bolt from Oklahoma City. Had Durant stayed put, or opted to go anywhere other than Golden State, the Finals this year could very well have been Golden State and Cleveland again anyway. But it almost certainly would have lasted more than five games, and it’s not rocket science to think Golden State would have at least been challenged and faced some adversity in the Western Conference playoffs as opposed to going 12-0 on the way to another NBA Finals berth. It’s one thing for teams to become dynasties, and win multiple championships in a five-year span. It’s another level of inequality when that team dominates a league’s playoffs the way Golden State just did. For a league that was already looked at as top-heavy, that issue is only amplified now. Therefore, the answer to the question if the Warriors and Durant are a good thing for the NBA is a resounding no.

Photo: http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/06/12/warriors-win-nba-title-kevin-durant-claims-finals-mvp/