Trae Young is your Rookie of the Year and I will prove that right here and now. Tres thinks he can prove his case with statistics and advanced metrics, but he forgets what basketball is all about: buckets; scoring. Just like Kyrie Irving and other elite point guards in this league, Trae Young can score in any way possible. He has unlimited range, played 81 of 82 games this season, he throws dime after dime, and he has been a top 10 point guard the last 3 months of the season. For those reasons (and more) Trae Young should be your Rookie of the Year over Luka Doncic.
First things first, you can't win games unless you play in them. Trae Young has played in 81 of the 82 this year while scoring 19 points per game and dishing 8 assists per game on only about 30 minutes a game.
Second, he is dishing out dimes. Like I said, offense is important. Trae Young makes offense happen. Not just by pulling up from 28 feet out and making it rain in people's faces, he does it by involving his teammates. This season, Trae Young was 4th in assists per game, 2nd in total assists (by a decent margin too) and he is a master at orchestrating the pick-n-roll. Trae Young and John Collins have learned to play off each other and as a result, have become one of the best dynamic scoring duos, not just among young players, but in the entire league!
Trae Young, from game 51 (start of February) to game 82 Trae Young has been Rookie of the month twice (3 times total), shot 43% from three in February, scored 49 in a 4OT game against the Bulls, was ejected for making it rain in Kris Dunn's face, beat the Bucks at the buzzer, and embarrassed the Pistons with a between the leg pass. Simply put, Trae Young is amazing, he is fun, and he needs to be the ROY this year. Now let's compare him to the competition.
There is one other major player in the ROY race: Luka Doncic. In my opinion, Collin Sexton needs to be in consideration but that's not happening so all I need to do to make my case is beat Luka Doncic. So here is why Trae is better.
First he created more with less than Luka did. Trae Young's best player he played with was John Collins, a second year forward. Luka's best teammates were Hall of Famer in Dirk Nowitzki, DeAndre Jordan, Harrison Barnes, and he had a great coach in Rick Carlilse. Trae Young was learning just as much as his first year head coach Lloyd Pierce was. Also, Trae Young is a much more fun player to watch. What's more fun? A guy who casually dribbles into the lane and creates a shot for himself? Or a guy who creates a shot for himself and makes a deep three from 30 feet out in the eye of his defender? I thought so...
In the statistical categories, Trae Young has a higher assists to turnover ratio than Luka and he straight up averages more assists than him. Trae also creates more points for his team than Luka does. Trae creates 20.1 points per game and Luka only creates 15. If you add their respective points per game average, Luka creates 36.2 points per game. Trae Young creates 39.2 which, as two players who create shots for their team, is better than Luka's. They are both offensive minded players so whoever creates more for their team is the better player in my opinion.
Finally, Luka Doncic only played 71 games this year compared to Trae's 81. You can't win games unless you play them and Trae Young played in almost all of them.
Thus, Trae Young is your Rookie of the Year because he creates more for his team, created more highlights, captivated the heart of NBA fans everywhere, and played 81 out of the 82 games he could play.
**stats from Basketball-Reference and NBA.com
Also Tres wrote an article about Trae Young earlier this year so he makes my case even more for me.
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