Apparently We’re Redefining What Counts As A Rookie In the NBA? OK, I Can Do That Too
by Boobie
The Rookie of the Year debate between Ben Simmons and Donovan Mitchell is the NBA’s most contentious awards debate this year, mirroring the 2016–17 MVP debate in that there are two clear contenders and the player you back speaks not only to whom you think has had a better year but what you think matters about the game in general and your team-building philosophy. The parallels aren’t exact, nor could you expect them to be given that Russell Westbrook and James Harden are more or less fully formed players in their primes and Simmons and Mitchell are not only rookies but, uh, completely different human beings than those MVP contenders, but similar elements to what made last year’s debate so heated are there again in the ROY race.
I’m not here to talk about the respective strengths and weaknesses of each player and their case to take home the award, though. I’m here to talk about one particularly stupid thing I’ve been seeing Mitchell’s proponents use: that Simmons is not actually a rookie because he was drafted two years ago, then sat out a year with an injury. This is stupid for a couple reasons. The first is that the NBA’s definition of a rookie is a player who has never played in NBA game before the season in question. Simmons has never played a game in the NBA before this season, therefore, he is a rookie. The other reasons are less important — he and Mitchell were born in the same year and were in the same high school and college classes, so it’s not as though Simmons has the same age and developmental advantage that, say, the 29 year old Malcolm Brogdon had over the field last year — and unless we’re going change the definition of a rookie, they don’t matter at all.
It seems that Mitchell’s advocates do want to do that, though. Presumably, their position is that you shouldn’t be allowed to be a rookie unless you’re playing in the season directly following the draft in which you are selected. If we’re doing that, though, then I have some suggestions of my own. After all, it’s apparently important that the Rookie of the Year recipient be as pure as possible, otherwise this particular argument would simply be a bad-faith partisan argument in favor of Mitchell in 2017–18 in particular, and surely that’s not the case, right?
The first change is that the player can’t have ever made money playing basketball before. That rules out European players, obviously — sorry, Luka — but also anyone who was paid to attend a college — sayonara, Deandre Ayton, Michael Porter, Jr., and probably tons of other prospects (possibly including Mitchell). Unless the FBI breaks the pay-to-play thing wide open, there’s no way to be sure that any player from a major program like Duke, Kentucky, Louisville, etc. is clean, and since Porter and Markelle Fultz before him obviously wouldn’t have gone to relative college basketball backwaters like Missouri and Washington without being handed the bag to do so, we should probably just rule out the power conferences altogether.
The next change is that a rookie isn’t allowed to be older than 21. A basketball player doesn’t reach their prime until around age 26, so this means that if any players are older than 21, they are closer to their athletic primes than those younger than 21, and therefore have an unfair advantage. Think about any comparison between the number one pick of the 2016 draft, Simmons, and the number two selection, Brandon Ingram — Ingram is given the benefit of the doubt because he’s nearly a year younger and has far more physical development to do. An age restriction would do a lot to eliminate these differences and ensure a fairer comparison between players.
Finally, anyone taken in the first round of the draft shouldn’t be allowed to win Rookie of the Year. The distinction of being chosen in the first round is generally reserved for players who have had a good chance of making the NBA since they were in their early teens. Is that the sort of hubris we really want to reward with an award won by such luminaries as LeBron James, Kevin Durant, and Michael Carter-Williams? No. The NBA viewing public deserves a Cinderella story, and Rookie of the Year is the perfect place to give it to them. We could restrict the award further to only undrafted free agents, but come on, let’s not be ridiculous.
So, applying these three improvements (no players from power conference schools, no players older than 20, and no first round draft picks) to the existing definition of “rookie”, who is the Rookie of the Year for the 2017–18 season? Well, it’s no one. There is no rookie of the year this season. I hope you weirdo Ben Simmons-is-not-a-rookie truthers are happy.
