Re: Sportszone Rookie of the Year Voting (fwd)

[Adam A Suchocki <Twilight@world.std.com>]

Your leaving out Dean Garret, then again so is everyone else.  Sorry for
the non-Celtic tirade, but I just don't understand why Dean Garret is
getting no attention as a rookie.  For some reason, Marbury is being
touted as a strong rookie of the year candidate because Minn is in the
playoffs for the first time ever - now Marrbury is a top flight rookie,
and should make the all rookie team, but he has a team mate who should get
considered for all rookie team as well, who is instead being ignored by
the press.
Dean Garret, a rookie (albeit a 30 year old rookie) replaced Stoyko early
in the season as starting center.  He finished the season in the top five
for rookies in rebounds, blocked shots, and field goal percentage.  In the
second half of the season, he was racking up a large number of double
doubles.  He finished second to walker in rebounding despite playing in a
line-up with Googs and Garnet.  Down the stretch for the timberwolves
there were at least 3 games where he lead the team in both scoring and
rebounding.  He was, without a doubt, the most effective rookie center
this year, yet I've seen him get little, if any, press.  So, though I like
Marbury a lot, I have real trouble giving him much credit for Minnasotta's
success.  When he wasn't playing, they were still winning - but it wasn't
until Garret came on strong that the wolves were able to use their big
front line (the 3 g's) and thus give a lot of teams serious matchup
problems.

Now, sorry for praising a non-celtic, but ti does remind me a lot of what
is happening with Walker. The script that most writers were pushing before
the season began was:

Iverson - out of control, but will score enough to be ROY
Marbury - more complete point guard, will help his team more
Rahim - great scorer who will surprise everyone
Allen - explosive scorer, could be ROY because he will be his teams only
perimeter threat
Walker - raw, out of control player who will get big scoring numbers due
to Boston's lack of talent

Now, some of that came true, but just how is playing on a bad team
generating Walker's assist, rebounding, and steal numbers.  Walker got
back to back triple doubles (and had more tripple doubles than all other
rookies combined), and yet I could not find any mention of this being
exceptional on any national sports outlet.  When is the last timea power
forward had back to back triple doubles - rookie or otherwise - and yet, I
don;t see anyone taking notice other than to say - that's just because
he's on a bad team.  If that's the case, why wasn't Rahim churning out the
triple doubles.  Rahim played on a worse team, yet he only got average
rebounding numbers.

Walker is not a clear ROY winner, but he has as much claim to it as
Iverson does, and probably more of a claim than Rahim or Marbury.  What I
really can't understand is that I've read a few articles that have ranked
Walker as far down as 6th or 7th for his rookie year performance - how is
a player who is in the top five for every statistical catagory for rookies
accept blocked shots and free throw percentage not in the top 5 at least.  

The excuses have been really odd.  Some have mentioned his low field goal
percentage (he has spent the year in the top five for rookie field goal
percentage and 3 point percentages).  But the main knock has been, he
plays for Boston, and is therefore not a legitimate candidate - and I just
want to know what the logic behind this is.  

ANyway, enough ranting from me for now, nut if I see another sportswriter
who claims that Camby and Kittles are legitimate ROY candidates and Walker
isn't, I'm gonna lose it.  If I had to pick the top five for ROY, I'd
probably go with Iverson, Marrbury, Walker, Rahim, and a tie between
Garret and Kittles.  Camby would come in a distant 7th, and that just
because he put up some decent rebounding numbers for a few weeks when he
was healthy.

Adam

PS. ok, one last rant - has anyone else noticed the rather underhanded
manuverings of Peter May (Globe sports writer).  He's the one who launched
the story quoting a secret source saying Carr was out.  Now Carr may very
well be out, but it surprised me that the regular Globe Cletics writer
didn't have anything on this story, and neither did any of the Herald
writers.  But then, the next day, he continues to talk about Carr being
definately gone - this time quoting "a story run yesterday in the globe as
saying Carr would step down," --- he's the one who wrote the original
story, and now he is referencing himself as if it were another source to
back up his story.  It   all may be true, but this is the same guy who
quoted a secret source as saying the Celtics were going to waive Todd Day
at the start of the season, and that the Bullets were willing to trade
Cheaney for Barros at the start of the season...I swear he makes things up
just to have something exciting to write about.

On Tue, 22 Apr 1997, Jon Michael Hamm wrote:

> 
> >Quiz question: how many rookies blocked more shots per game than
> >Abdur-Rahim ... (Answer: 4, but you'll never guess who they were, because
> >blocked shots don't mean very much if you're only blocking 1 per game).
> 
> Just taking some wild guesses here...
> 
> Camby, Dampier, Travis Knight and Lorenzen Wright. All 4 logged alot of
> minutes, and are pretty good shot blockers.
> 
> But knowing my luck, it's probably Matt Maloney, Randy Livingston, Marcus
> Brown and Steve Hamer....
> 
> 
> |====================================================|
> | Jon Michael Hamm 	   JonMichael@Honors.ou.edu  |
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