All the Pretty Rookies of the Year

What a year it was. Actually, it's not over yet. But this regular season was really one for the ages, due in no small part to all the totally awesome rookies we fell in love with. How often do you have three legit Rookie of the Year candidates, each of them putting up All-Star-ish numbers, each with their own rabid camp of supporters? And it doesn't stop there. We got to see so many other rookies play well, or at least behave notably enough that, with the regular season through, we feel they all deserve a chocolate-chip pancake.

Therefore, rather than live with the single ROY award that's customary in the league, or the co-ROY that's been known to happen, we went ahead and gave out 35 separate little imaginary trophies. One for each first-rounder, and then honors for some second-rounders of note. Drink up, enjoy, and remember, even dwarves start small and only the good die young. Or, to reprise something they taught us once in grade school, everyone's special in their own way. It just takes a highly-trained writer to take time and describe it. Good luck, Class of 2009, may this be the first of many plaudits you earn as one and as many.

1. Blake Griffin, Clippers -- Suicidal Rookie of the Year. Whether Griffin's famously tough, Navy S.E.A.L. pre-draft training contributed to his knee injury is irrelevant. You leave college that beloved the year the Clippers, Wizards and Kings have the best chances at the top pick and you deserve what happens next. (Tom Ziller)

2. Hasheem Thabeet, Grizzlies -- Beyond Rookie Mountain Rookie of the Year. The first-ever lotto pick to do serious D-League time. That's like being so happy about your new child that you go and adopt a motherless one living in an incubator. In the end, of course, Thabeet is now the better for it, and the baby stars in, and is the subject of, a Lifetime movie. That would make the NCAA the womb, and preps-to-pros artificial insemination. (Bethlehem Shoals)

3. James Harden, Thunder -- Harm Reduction Rookie of the Year. Blake Griffin would have been perfect here. But when OKC drew number three, Presti had to put on his thinking cap -- a golden device that so many young men would give their souls to glimpse but once. Russell Westbrook is their point guard of the future, so no need for clutter there. Even snagging Rubio as a defensive move would prove too much of a distraction. Trading the pick wouldn't get them the big man they wanted, at least not without sacrificing cap room. Enter Harden, the ultimate low-risk, medium-reward pick, the equivalent of skipping a turn late in a game of Monopoly to collect rent money from others. Is that even legal? (BS)



Share 4. Tyreke Evans, Kings -- Actual Rookie of the Year. How often does the ROY race have a narrative arc to it? What's more, in addition to Evans first overtaking Jennings and then beating back Curry, there were the in-house questions of how he would work with Kevin Martin, why he couldn't play with Martin, and then, whether he had rendered Martin disposable. So many little lives inside of it that the 20-5-5 line seems but a gimmick, especially since it's close to his quantitative ceiling. Sorry, but that's why he's no Oscar Robertson, Michael Jordan, or LeBron James. (BS)

5. Ricky Rubio, Timberwolves -- Phantom Rookie of the Year. Think about it: Griffin, the no-question number one, misses the entire season, and Rubio, the prospect who enters the draft dragging his own legend around behind him, never even makes it to America. All seemed lost. Yet 2009 ends up the best class since 2003. At least Griffin showed us enough in the preseason to wish him well and look forward to the future. Rubio's that pile of old love letters that you'll burn if you ever turn them up. (BS)

6. Jonny Flynn, Timberwolves -- Wife From a Lifetime Movie Rookie of the Year. The Wolves screwed Flynn out of a couple hundred thousand bucks by picking Rubio first, never mind the doubt about the point guard pecking order that decision left. Then Minnesota picks up Ramon Sessions in free agency, and (here's the kicker) installs a system in which the point guard's role is subjugated. (TZ)

7. Stephen Curry, Warriors -- Wholesome Rookie of the Year. Only a babyface like Curry could break the rookie record for most made three-pointers and still win accolades for his unselfish ways. Curry is so American he almost made Don Nelson human again and saved Monta Ellis from being run out of town. If Evans is the Star of this class, Curry is the dreamboat. (TZ)

8. Jordan Hill, Knicks -- Vengeful Rookie of the Year. Hill wasn't content to make Mike D'Antoni look like a fool after being traded from the Knicks to Rockets. And don't be blinded by D'Antoni's rep: Hill did undress the coach by contributing well down the stretch for a winning team. But Hill's real victory was in goading D'Antoni into a dumb battle of trash talk, in which the coach told media he doesn't play "bad rookies," implying if Hill hadn't sucked he would have played more. As a result, D'Antoni not only looked wrong, he looked sore, too. The scoreboard reads Hill 2, D'Antoni 0. (TZ)

9. DeMar DeRozan, Raptors -- Little Brother Rookie of the Year. DeRozan wasn't very productive as a rookie. If you ignore that, he's basically Chris Bosh 2.0. Remember that Vince Carter bid his way out of town when Bosh arrived, a moment which had signaled a new era in Toronto basektball. DeRozan surely hasn't "arrived," but Bosh appears to have treated DeMar's arrival with the same dissatisfaction Carter showed. As in, what good is a 20-year-old to me? I suppose in six years DeRozan will prepare his southern flight by rejecting the presence of the next top-10 Raptors pick. (TZ)

10. Brandon Jennings, Bucks -- The High/Low Rookie of the Year. He began the year dropping 55 and getting incorrectly branded the next Allen Iverson. Then his stats fell way off, but Jennings harmoniously shared a backcourt with Luke Ridnour and fed Andrew Bogut as the Bucks went from overachievers to hard-scrabble playoff team. Basketball Prospectus even put Jennings on their All-Defensive second team. The Bogut-less Bucks are on the verge of upsetting the Hawks, and Jennings is still starting, still interspersing big scoring nights with doleful absences.

You could say that Jennings is damned if he does, damned if he doesn't. Or you could look at the kid and see a great point guard in embryo -- one who, for now, provides an unlikely hybrid of Gus Williams and Eric Snow. Something's bound to give, snap, unravel or bloom. But Jennings is very much looking like that new breed of player who can invent a dance step on the sidelines and then still turn around and respect the game. (BS)

11. Terrence Williams, Nets -- Incomplete Rookie of the Year. Williams must be really, really good. LeBron James good. Dwyane Wade good. Otherwise, why would the historically lousy Nets have denied him serious burn until the end of the year? If New Jersey is indeed trying to make itself an attractive destination for free agents this summer, you'd think it would want to show off the talent it had. Based on Williams's play during the second half, cooler heads might think him an asset. Unless, of course, any superstar free agent would cower in fear if they saw Williams let loose for a full season. They really messed this one up. (BS)

12. Gerald Henderson, Bobcats -- Race Against History Rookie of the Year. Is still slightly ahead of the other Gerald Henderson. (BS)

13. Tyler Hansbrough, Pacers --Spare Parts Rookie of the Year. If Mike Dunleavy, Jeff Foster, Troy Murphy, or Josh McRoberts needs to replace an arm or kidney, Tyler's there and available. Or maybe they just planned to carve him up and send all his organs overseas. That's a good way to recoup your losses on a blown lottery pick. (BS)

14. Earl Clark, Suns -- Black Hole Sun Rookie of the Year. Whatever happened to this guy? (BS)

15. Austin Daye, Pistons -- Algebraic Rookie of the Year. Whoever decided solutions could be worth more than the sum of their parts needs to go back to business school. Lanky, smart, smooth? That doesn't equal Tayshaun Prince, no matter how many times you do the math.(TZ)

16. James Johnson, Bulls -- Charles Oakley Rookie of the Year. If Derrick Rose is the real post-Jordan savior of the Bulls, and if Johnson is no more skilled than what we saw during his mediocre rookie season, the motive for his selection becomes clear: the team knows Rose needs a bodyguard and has decided Kirk Hinrich is too flaky and Luol Deng too diplomatic. Taking the heat of LeBron's epochal dunk was just the first step toward a lifelong bond between Johnson and Rose. (TZ)

17. Jrue Holiday, Sixers -- Rip Van Winkle Rookie of the Year. Holiday, like fellow Bruin Russell Westbrook before him, was expected to be a project. Westbrook found a time machine and skipped the development phase, but Holiday was content to ride it out. Check back in five years, and see if Holiday's patience paid off. (TZ)

18. Ty Lawson, Nuggets -- KAAAAAHHN! Rookie of the Year. One of three point guards Minnesota GM David Kahn drafted last June actually had a good season in the NBA. It was the one he traded away. Picking Rubio for naught (at least temporarily) can be forgiven -- Otis Smith has survived Fran Vasquez's legacy, after all. Taking Flynn over Curry and Jennings is something at least five or six other GMs would have done, and is less of a crime than it seems, given Jonny's supposed leadership qualities and sure-to-improve jumper. But picking Lawson for the Nuggets, that's the real scare scene in this horror flick of a debut season for Kahn. If the NBA had a three strikes law on the books, Kahn would be toast. (TZ)



19. Jeff Teague, Hawks -- Jealous Rookie of the Year. One of the truest NBA draft maxims is that where you land is always more important than how high you land. Nowhere is that more evident than in Hawks-Bucks, where Brandon Jennings has his name on the marquee while Teague plots Mike Bibby's demise from the end of the bench. Teague's future is now in fate's hands, and anyone who's broken bread with Jamal Crawford know fate's a devil woman. (TZ)

20. Eric Maynor, Jazz/Thunder -- Ripple Effect Rookie of the Year. Of the 11 or so starting point guard-ish players drafted in this first round, Maynor is the least impressive. However, in the magical, wonderful place called this draft, the Valley of the Point Guards, being eleventh best ain't nothing to smirk at. Or maybe it's like this: Simply being a PG in this draft guaranteed success. It's plain as astrology. Either way, you can currently catch Eric Maynor quite capably backing up Russell Westbrook on everyone's new favorite team, the Oklahoma City Thunder. If Westbrook were to bump his head on the moon, Maynor could run the show without much drop-off. (BS)

21. Darren Collison, Hornets -- Reborn Rookie of the Year. Collison became the latest to prove you can never trust college. The UCLA product always looked like the perfect NCAA point guard, with clear holes sure to be exposed in the NBA. Instead, he cast away his past like a shadow at dusk, and became Chris Paul's shadow in New Orleans. Given Russell Westbrook's own UCLA-to-NBA swerve in 2009, Collison's rebirth might very well have clinched Ben Howland as the anti-Calipari. (TZ)

22. Victor Claver, Blazers -- Free-Associative Rookie of the Year. When international players get drafted and don't materialize in the NBA, all we have is their names. In Victor's case, it reminds me of "clavier" and "clavicle," so I think of him as someone who is constantly breaking his collarbone because he is banging out the Bach way too hard. (BS)

23. Omri Casspi, Kings -- Lindsay Lohan Rookie of the Year. Freed from the shackles of European basketball and having excelled with passion and energy early in the season, Casspi got drunk on liberty and turned into a wild-eyed tyrant by the year's end, taking bad shots and smiling about it. It's comforting to believe Omri actually hasn't slept since Purim, and this can all be resolved with a good nap and some tea. (TZ)

24. Byron Mullens, Thunder -- Grown Man Rookie of the Year. Back when Mike Conley graduated to the NBA, he attempted to remake his image by insisting folks refer to him as "Michael Conley." So silly was the idea that the Grizzlies didn't even make the change on their online roster. So it's been "Mike" forevermore. Mullens, a fellow Ohio State one-and-done, pulled the same move, switching from "B.J." to "Byron." But it stuck, proving that the Thunder care more about their players than do the Grizzlies. (TZ)

25. Rodrigue Beaubois, Mavericks -- Colonial Rookie of the Year. Desperate few of France's NBA legionnaires were actually born in mainland France. Beaubois, from the Caribbean island of Guadeloupe, a French territory since 1674 (with brief cameos of British and Swedish rule), is the latest. We're convinced the Guadeloupe-to-France-to-America hoops pipeline (word to Mickael Pietrus and his brother Florent) is the most passive-aggressive form of revolution yet. (TZ)

26. Taj Gibson, Bulls -- The Pride of Tarzana, California Rookie of the Year. That's where he went to high school for two years. You can look it up. Also, now that I've got your attention, can we please make his nickname "Black Taj"? (BS)

27. DeMarre Carroll, Grizzlies -- The "No, I Am Not a D-League Call-Up" Rookie of the Year. (BS)

28. Wayne Ellington, Timberwolves -- Counting Blessings Rookie of the Year. It could be worse. Sure, Ellington was a bench option for an awful team, and not a particularly productive bench option at that. And true, his Carolina class, which included Hansbrough, Lawson and Danny Green, slipped far below that of the last Tar Heel title team, four of whom made the lottery. But at least Ellington's not yet Rashad McCants, and he has a cleaner bill of health than Hansbrough. Small victories, sure, but victories nonetheless. (TZ)

29. Toney Douglas, Knicks -- Failed Commercialization Rookie of the Year. New York's only team (for the time being) had a supremely confident, kinda-nuts rookie guard named Toney and couldn't find a way to pull off a Ghostface Killa promo night? Man, Isiah and Starbury really did mess up this franchise. (TZ)

30. Christian Eyenga, Cavs -- Best Rookie Dunker Since Mike Taylor of the Year. His performance in the ACB dunk contest (Spain) was so amazing YouTube had to take it down. People thought it was a snuff film and complained to their senators. (BS)

37. DeJuan Blair, Spurs -- Medical Rookie of the Year. Hopefully, you've heard it by now: Blair has no ACL in either knee. Blair's an undersized rebounding machine who relies on a combination of power and position, so it's not like he's dancing along the baseline on every play. But as he showed the world during the Rookie-Sophomore Game, Blair can also get up and dunk when advisable. Most importantly, the man missing what was once the most feared ligament in the sports world is a perfectly healthy, mobile young man.

It makes you wonder how Danny Manning feels about all this. Does he wish that, all those many years ago, he'd just said to his doctor "take the thing out, don't bother trying to repair it"? Or is he secretly rooting for Blair to crumple in a heap one of these days, like so many non-believers among us? The man is proof of the existence of aliens, plain and simple. (BS)

38. Jon Brockman, Kings -- Cub Cadet Lawnmowers Rookie of the Year. Brockman became the first NBA rookie in history to get paid to tweet ads for cars and sandwich shops. He also proved a guy like Reggie Evans could be marketable, if only he made himself a college hero by eating lots of pancakes and breaking his nose repeatedly. (BS)

39. Jonas Jerebko, Pistons -- Geopolitically Disadvantaged Rookie of the Year. Jerebko, the league's first Swede, had a nice little rookie season, averaging 9/6 for a bad Pistons squad. He was basically the blond Casspi. Except that Casspi was heralded in just about every city he visited on account of being the NBA's first Israeli. Omri figures to win far more endorsement opportunities than Jerebko, even if the Swede ends up being a better or equivalent player. Life just isn't fair. (TZ)

(BS: I had dinner with some very nice Swedes in Rome who knew nothing about basketball, but knew Jerebko and knew he was a good rebounder.)

43. Marcus Thornton, Hornets -- Mundane Rookie of the Year. Thornton fell so far in the draft for the same reason Eric Gordon gets so little attention: the NBA is so over scorers. Even if you do it incredibly well, you have to bring something odd to the table to draw eyeballs, whether it be Kevin Durant's abundance, Carmelo Anthony's diversity or Joe Johnson's serenity. No one cares about the Caron Butlers of the league until they get a grim reaper tat or an oral fixation. (TZ)

44. Chase Budinger, Rockets -- Chris Andersen Rookie of the Year. With Budinger showing his famed athleticism during a productive year in Houston, we're only months away from the kid making a fool of us all at the Slam Dunk contest. "Watch the Bud-man fly!" (BS)