Texas Chuck wrote:Never understood why Blake or Ben or Chet or whomever bothers anyone. Did they play? Nope. So they are rookies when they do. Does it help them to get to spend a year in the organization? I would hope so, but doesn't make them not a rookie.
ROTY is not-that-much valuable award and its basic purpose is to very early compare and assess new players entering the league on similar stage of their respective careers.
We have enough of examples that not playing, but still being in a league can be great for a player's development. Blake, Simmons, Holmgren - they all, despite being top picks, were 'surprisingly' good in their 'rookie' seasons, Embiid as well improved vastly despite not playing for two years.
Thus, it doesn't make too much sense to compare 1st and 2nd-year players as if they'd been of the same experience - even if technically they are all 'rookies'.
There are always some fans negating that being for a year in the league was actually helpful for these mentioned guys.
I don't think Chet bothers (almost) anyone, reactions about his game are overwhelmingly positive. But to call him a rookie is like a half-truth, the other half is he's older than some prominent 3rd-year players, in his 2nd-year of contract, and spent a year within NBA environment.
If we all had agreed on that, I don't think the next time in similar case we would've had the same discussion. But in 3 years the next top prospect will skip his rookie year for whatever reason and then his 'rookie' season will be 'one of the best in the XXI century' (as, not by accident, was also the case for Simmons, Griffin or Embiid when he was healthy in his rookie year), and we will discuss to what degree he's a rookie.
He may be a step behind in terms of career growth in comparison to sophomore players of his draft class, who played a year earlier on regular basis - but he's also a step in front in comparison to rookie players, who haven't spent a year in the NBA already.
