The NBA revealed it’s All-Rookie teams today, and Rodney Stuckey earned a spot on the second team, though he did receive five first-place votes. All in all, being included among the league’s top 10 rookies is a pretty nice accomplishment for a guy drafted 15th overall, especially when you consider he played behind a pair of All-Stars, missed 25 games with a broken hand and started only two regular season games.
I’m not surprised (yet still disappointed) to see that Arron Afflalo didn’t receive a single vote. Strictly looking at the numbers I can see why he was overlooked, but he deserves a lot of credit for cracking Detroit’s rotation from Day 1 when a lot of people figured he’d be riding the pine or even spending much of the year in the D-League.
For the record, the first team was Kevin Durant, Al Horford, Al Thornton, Luis Scola and Jeff Green. The rest of the second team included Jamario Moon, Thaddeus Young, Juan Carlos Navarro and Carl Landry.
—MEMO—
To: Joe Dumars, General Manager, Detroit Pistons
From: Otis Smith, General Manager, Orlando Magic
RE: Stuckey
Message: You’re welcome.
Any link to the full team lists?
Just updated the post …
http://www.nba.com/news/all_rookie_080513.html
Like Carlos Arroyo on defense, I’m a bit slow…
zing.
Matt W.: The All-Rookie Team is not supposed to be based on their potential in the league, it’s strictly limited to what the player did in their rookie season. With that in mind, Stuckey’s an alright fit on the second team, and Afflalo … Well, 3.7 ppg and 1.8 rpg ain’t getting a vote. Truthfully, I’m not so sure Rodney’s a better candidate for 2nd team than Yi (despite him not delivering that much of a return on the hype this season). The 17 points Noah got in the voting is astounding though. He shouldn’t have more points than Yi and he shouldn’t miss Stuckey by only one. That’s absurd.
To further explain, I just don’t know how one could be disappointed when there was no reason to have expectations in the first place. Sorry if I’m being harsh Matt, but I counted 19 guys who I’d give a vote before I’d give one to Afflalo. I just don’t want to be a blind homer, and Afflalo’s flashes of skill look fantastic, but his resumé has nothing. Anyway, Kelly Dwyer penned this excellent column for Yahoo!, and I just had to share it with DBB. I’ve been making Dwyer’s claim for months now, and I think it’s safe to say that this deals with one of, if not DBB’s most consistently debated, issues:
http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/news;_ylt=Asi7ZindYNnrFZ4AXr6PTYm8vLYF?slug=ys-saunderspistons051208&prov=yhoo&type=lgns
Ben Q. Rock,
While you’re criticizing me, don’t forget to mention my pantyhose.
Regards,
C. Arroyo
LB: I know exactly what you mean, and I pretty much agree. I don’t think Afflalo deserved a spot on the 2nd team at all, it’s just one of those things where I wish he got at least a single vote.
It’s a weird distinction to make, but 24 players received at least one vote, and I think Afflalo belongs in the top 24. You can’t really justify it using stats, but if you watched him play, he obviously made a nice impact this year.
But I’m splitting hairs and being hypocritical — if I had a ballot and I had to list the top 10 rookies, I wouldn’t include Afflalo. But I wish someone would.
I just read that and I don’t know if I’m even making sense. Feel free to disregard my ramblings.
I like Carlos’ socks. I wore that style when I played.