Updates: Lone voter against Roy receives hate mail: <div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">Chuck Swirsky, the only person who didn't vote for Trail Blazers guard Brandon Roy as Rookie of the Year, said he is receiving hate mail because of his decision to vote for Toronto's Andrea Bargnani. Swirsky, the play-by-play television announcer for the Raptors, voted for Bargnani while listing Roy second on his ballot. Bargnani, who was the No. 1 overall pick in the June draft, finished second in the balloting by a panel of 128 sportswriters and broadcasters. "This is not an anti-Brandon Roy thing, I hope people understand that," Swirsky said Wednesday from Toronto. "This was strictly a case of me seeing Bargnani day after day. He was a significant player on a playoff team." Because of Swirsky's vote, Roy missed becoming the third unanimous winner of the award, which first was accomplished by Houston's Ralph Sampson (1983-84) and later by San Antonio's David Robinson (1989-90). Swirsky has long revealed his vote, and reasoning, posting an entry on his blog on raptors.com, as well as rationalizing his pick earlier this week in an e-mail to The Oregonian. His e-mail was posted as a blog entry on OregonLive.com. Since then, Swirksky said he has received hundreds of e-mails from Blazers fans. In fact, after Wednesday's voting was revealed, showing his as the only non-Roy vote, Swirsky said he received more than 300 e-mails in a four-hour span. "I can understand why people are frustrated, but I don't understand why people are so hate-centered," Swirsky said. "It's been borderline disgusting." </div> Source: The Oregonian A first-hand perspective (Fred Jones' opinion): <div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">Perhaps the person with the best perspective on the Rookie of the Year race was Freddie Jones, who played the first half of the season with Andrea Bargnani in Toronto, and the last half with Brandon Roy in Portland. Jones said there was no question in his mind that Roy was the right choice. "Andrea had a good year, but he struggled early on - of course, Brandon was hurt early on - but Andrea took a little longer to get accustomed to the league. I told everybody that Brandon was ready from Day One. He just had everything. Andrea had to get accustomed to the league and get his confidence. Brandon had his confidence from Day One.'' Jones said Roy's late-game heroics were a factor that widened the gap between the top two rookies. "Brandon is this team's go-to guy. Andrea is not their go-to-guy; Chris (Bosh) is,'' Jones said. "Brandon was able to separate himself even more, because when it came down to crunch time, everybody was looking at Brandon.'' Of course, as everybody knows by now, Toronto television play-by-play man Chuck Swirsky, had a different opinion. Jones couldn't help but chuckle at the spot in which his old-buddy Swirsky finds himself, being the only person who didn't vote for Roy, instead choosing to vote for Bargnani. "You know Chuck is going to go with his guy,'' Jones said. "Chuck is a good dude. He's all about the Raptors, and you can't blame him for that. But I'm telling you, Chuck is a good guy. Even so, he knows in his heart who he should have voted for. And that's not taking anything away from Andrea, because Andrea is going to be a really good player. I love Andrea. Maybe he can get Most Improved Player next year.''</div> Source: The Oregonian
<div class="quote_poster">02civic Wrote</div><div class="quote_post">^ Kobe had a better statistical season than Dirk and yet Dirk wins MVP?</div> We're not talking about the Most Valuable Player. We're talking about the Rookie of the year. You may like to think of them as having the same criteria, but the truth of the matter is they don't. Team success holds much less weight in ROY voting then MVP does. MVP has never been about just numbers...ROY usually is.
<div class="quote_poster">02civic Wrote</div><div class="quote_post">^ Kobe had a better statistical season than Dirk and yet Dirk wins MVP?</div> I think you could of made that argument if when Bargnani got injured the Raptors went into a tail spin. However, they went 11-3 down the stretch without the Bargnani. The irony though is that while Roy only played in 57 games compared to Bargs 65. Bargnani's injury hurt his campaign for ROY a lot more because just as scribes were getting ready to submit their ballot Brandon Roy was lighting it up/hitting game winning shots, while Bargnani was recovering from an apendectomy. With all that being said Roy should have been the unanimous ROY. Its a shame Swirsky and his homerism denied him of that. Still though Bargnani future looks bright and long term I see more potential in him than Brandon Roy.
