It's been quite a while since my last Rookie EFF Update. So, time to see how the young guys have been doing lately. Now that we're about 50 games into the season, I've decided to invoke the Rajon Rondo Rule and weed out the pretenders by only including rookies with an EFF => 8.0. Because let's face it, if that's all you got, you're not in contention for 1st team All-Rookie and won't be getting any ROY votes. In fact, at best, you'll be fighting for the last spot 2nd Team All-Rookie (say hello to J.R Bremer for me!). So, here's where we're at right now: At the top of the heap, it continues to be a two-man race - not really, but in theory... Damian Lillard remains steady at EFF = 16.9. In fact, other than a single very bad game, followed by a very good game, Lillard has been remarkably consistent over the last two and a half months. His January and December numbers were nearly identical and his February numbers are again right in line with the previous two months. For a sample size bigger than one game, Lillard is about as consistent as you can get for a rookie. And, by holding steady, Lillard is winning ROY by attrition as Anthony Davis continues to slide as his playing time is cut and the losses keep piling up whenever he plays big minutes. The kid definitely has talent, but maybe he wasn't quite as NBA-ready as advertised. Tonight's match up between the top two rookies will be interesting. How will Lillard follow-up last night's 33-point effort against Miami? Will Davis get enough PT to be a factor, and if he is, will it be a positive factor? The injury bug seems to have caught up with this year's rookie class. Andre Drummond, who in spite of even less PT than Anthony Davis, was steadily moving up the Rookie EFF Rankings is out for 3 - 4 weeks after back surgery. Michael Kidd-Gilchrist missed two games after that nasty concussion and hasn't been the same player since. Bradley Beal missed five games with a bad wrist, but has put up some big numbers since his return. And Jared Sullinger is out for the season after back surgery. Assuming Drummond is only out 3 - 4 weeks, with the All-Star break, he won't miss that many games. If so, and Michael Kidd-Gilchrist can break out of his current slump, 1st Team All Rookie is starting to look pretty clear cut: Lillard (Overwhelming ROY Favorite) Davis Drummond Kidd-Gilchrist Beal 2nd Team All Rookie is still up for grabs. With Sullinger out of the picture, that leaves Valanciunas, Zeller, Waiters, Shved, Barnes, Singler and Nicholson vying for 2nd Team honors. Singler and Nicholson are moving up and Shved continues to slide after Rubio's return (so much for making his teammates better, sorry wrong thread). I'd say it's shaping up to be a hotly contested race for 2nd Team All Rookie, but then I remember it's 2nd Team All Rookie we're talking about (Hello again, J. R. Bremer!) In all seriousness, in the only race that really matters Damian Lillard is running away from the field for ROY. Once Davis had played a significant number of games without further injury, I really thought he'd give Lillard a run for his money, but with his recent lack of PT and poor production this really is Lillard's race to lose - and I just don't see than happening with only about 30 games to go. Still too soon to put the champagne on ice and engrave the trophy, but not by much. BNM
If Lillard went down with a season-ending injury getting out of the shower today, he'd still win ROY.
BNM, you should have a link showing how EFF is calculated. Does it take minutes played into consideration?
No, not at all. EFF is a simple good minus bad. The raw stats in PER are weighted, adjusted for pace and normalized. BNM
