Isaiah Thomas - NBA's 7th Best Rookie (ROY Voting)

I'd like to know who gave Shumpert that 1st place vote. 7th place is a little too low for IT. I think he pays the fact that he plays for the Kings. If he had the same season for the Knicks, he'd be in the top 5 for sure.
 
I'm not at all surprised by the top 5. Klay Thompson and Isaiah Thomas were separated by two points, which seems fair. They each bring a different skill set, so depending on what the voters were valuing, I could see how they were close. There was also a decent drop to the next tier, which seemed OK to me. Frankly, I feel as though everyone is about where I would have put them.
 
Don't think Lenoard or Faried should have been ahead. IT did win 2 rookie of the month awards vs only 1 for Faried in the shortened month of April.
 
Faried's been quite an impact for Denver. Leonard's impact has been on the defensive side, but he's obviously helped the Spurs. Sure, some of it is probably based on the fact that both are playoff teams, but that doesn't discredit their impact.
 
I considered Irving and Rubio inevitable, and that's what made Grant and Jerry's constant bleating so incredibly stupid and annoying. I can accept the arguments for Faried and Leonard. Shumpert and Thompson should not have outpointed IT though, and that result even throws some question over First Team All Rookie.
 
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I think the results are fair and, Grant and Jerry and the front office's "IT for ROY campaign" notwithstanding, I'm still very proud of Isaiah for making the top 10, especially considering how disjointed the team looked most of the time.
 
If Rubio hadn't gotten hurt would we have had 3 ROYs from the same draft class? I haven't really seen Irving much.
 
I'm Fine with the rankings, aside from the Shumpert pick.

This is kind of a different argument, because ROY is a year one award ... but It would be hard for me to pick Isaiah over Leonard, Thompson, Faried, Rubio, or Irving as a player.
 
MassachusettsKingsFan said:
I'm Fine with the rankings, aside from the Shumpert pick.

This is kind of a different argument, because ROY is a year one award ... but It would be hard for me to pick Isaiah over Leonard, Thompson, Faried, Rubio, or Irving as a player.
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Irving definitely deserved to win. I have no problem with Rubio being second, although I thought he might slide because he simply didn't play in as many games. Shumpert should never have been that high. The guy that I thought got screwed is Chandler Parsons, another 2nd round pick, who I thought had a very good year, and I could easily make the argument that he had a better year than Leonard. But Leonard plays for the Spurs, and of course, rightly or wrongly, that factors in.
 
If you're questioning the Shumpert votes, you probably didn't watch the Knicks play very much this year. He was for a long stretch of the season right up there with Tyson Chandler as the two most important players on that team. He's not a scorer, but he played a very important role for them as a facilitator and a defensive stopper. As a rookie that's pretty impressive.

Objectively speaking, I don't know that he should have received more votes than IT, but he plays in New York and IT plays in Sacramento so what are you gonna do?
 
Sure wish GP pursued my "trade down and nab Leonard and Faried" plan last draft.


I will forever hate Jimmer, no matter how good he gets, because of who we passed on... :p

A new Sactownfan has been born! (jk jk).
 
the last pick of the NBA draft that was picked by your team held his own and even outplayed some of the top point guards in the association night in and night out and you guys are "fine" with him finishing 7th? IT was top 4 at least! kyrie, rubio, IT, klay. with rubio injured im suprised IT didnt finish second.
 
The 4-7 ranking is essentially a toss-up Irving-Faried-Rubio is the correct 1-3 rankings and you can make a case for IT to go in the next few spots
 
The_Jamal said:
The 4-7 ranking is essentially a toss-up Irving-Faried-Rubio is the correct 1-3 rankings and you can make a case for IT to go in the next few spots
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Faried was one of my favorite players going into last years draft. My only question was his true height, but even at that, I thought he could be the next version of Ben Wallace, who was also undersized. So far, he's proving to be just that.
 
Considering that IT was drafted #60, the fact that he finished 7th in voting speaks volumes. Other than that, I could care less who finished ahead of him. If, going forward, Isaiah improves his game to the point that he's better than the 6 players voted ahead of him, the order of this popularity vote won't mean a thing.

Our own Tyreke Evans won the rookie of the year not so long ago, but is he the best player from that draft today? Is he even top 4?

If IT is one of the top 2 or 3 players from this draft 2-3 seasons from now, that's all that matters to me.
 
bajaden said:
Faried was one of my favorite players going into last years draft. My only question was his true height, but even at that, I thought he could be the next version of Ben Wallace, who was also undersized. So far, he's proving to be just that.
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Not quite Ben yet, as he really wasn't all that great of a defender last year. But I have absolutely no question that Faried will at the very least be a valuable 3rd big on a championship caliber team. He's the kind of guy who really doesn't care all that much who he faces, just that he knows he's going to outwork you. He's a really fun player to watch because you know he's a product of out-working everyone on the floor as opposed to coasting by on his natural abilities.
 
The_Jamal said:
Not quite Ben yet, as he really wasn't all that great of a defender last year. But I have absolutely no question that Faried will at the very least be a valuable 3rd big on a championship caliber team. He's the kind of guy who really doesn't care all that much who he faces, just that he knows he's going to outwork you. He's a really fun player to watch because you know he's a product of out-working everyone on the floor as opposed to coasting by on his natural abilities.
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Yeah, he still has some holes in his game, but he has a non stop motor. And most scouts will tell you that they consider effort a skill. Its the main reason that they're in love with MKG. Add athleticism to effort, and you have something special. Its just amazing sometimes to see Faried surrounded under the basket, and yet he's the guy that comes down with the rebound. He's a great second and third effort leaper.
 
Biggest problem for IT getting more votes is Kings were on national TV fewest of any team and the normallly biased east coast sports media didn't get a chance to see him especially in his many really good to great games. Kinda the price one pays for the lower 6-8 teams.
 
I love how Faried, Leonard, and Parsons are leaping over others in their draft. Sad to realize we could have picked 2 of these guys with our first round and early 2nd round picks.

Well the road is long. And I hope we were just hiding Honeycutt in favor of showcasing several of our expensive forwards for a possible trade, which no team really bit. But still I do hope for Freddette and Honeycutt to have long and improving careers in the NBA.
 
KingsCitizen said:
I love how Faried, Leonard, and Parsons are leaping over others in their draft. Sad to realize we could have picked 2 of these guys with our first round and early 2nd round picks.

Well the road is long. And I hope we were just hiding Honeycutt in favor of showcasing several of our expensive forwards for a possible trade, which no team really bit. But still I do hope for Freddette and Honeycutt to have long and improving careers in the NBA.
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That's the bigger issue imo that you hit on. Sure I was surprised IT finished at 7 in ROY voting, where I thought he'd probably finish 4-5, and not 1-2 like Grant/Jerry have so ridiculously been telling everyone for months, but the more apparent issue is that two guys who finished ahead of IT, in Leonard/Faried, could have helped this team and fill a greater position of need than Jimmer, especially given how awful we are at attracting FA's and how willingly we throw away cap space.

Faried/JT next to Cuz, and we don't need to offer Chuck 22M. In fact, that contract might limit our ability to resign JT, and if we don't get Davis? Could have had Faried locked up on a rookie contract.:mad:

If we just picked Leonard, we'd still have Beno, and wouldn't have another contract in Salmons which combined with CHuck/Outlaw will kill us this summer with cap space. Could have had Leonard locked up on a rookie contract, but instead are paying Outlaw/Salmons 11.5M per.:mad:

We're not too short on money to compete. We're too stupid with our money to compete.
 
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KingsCitizen said:
I love how Faried, Leonard, and Parsons are leaping over others in their draft. Sad to realize we could have picked 2 of these guys with our first round and early 2nd round picks.

Well the road is long. And I hope we were just hiding Honeycutt in favor of showcasing several of our expensive forwards for a possible trade, which no team really bit. But still I do hope for Freddette and Honeycutt to have long and improving careers in the NBA.
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I had two guys on my list for our second round pick when it came up. Chandler Parsons, and Tyler Honeycutt. I had Parsons rated higher than Honeycutt, simply because I thought he was more NBA ready, and he had played against tougher competition throughout the year. However, I wasn't disappointed when they took Honeycutt. Parsons got the chance to show what he could do, and Honeycutt didn't. So maybe we'll find out next season. I think what surprised a lot of people, is how good a defender Parsons is. He's another one of those sneaky athletes. He doesn't look quick, but you can't get by the bastard. Funny how that works sometimes..
 
watching Leonard these playoffs makes me very, very sad. the guy could end up the steal of the draft. there's just so little that he can't do and he's smart about it, too. when Pop says that he reminds him of Bruce Bowen, I keep thinking "yeah, only Bowen with rebounding and a lot more offense.". of course it's a question whether Leonard would've developed the same way round these parts, but since he has the rep of an absolute gym rat, I wouldn't have been worried about that at all. might've even spared us that Evans at the SF experiment.
 
Let us not make final judgments on the careers of these gentlemen after their first year. They each enter different situations that include different systems or lack of systems, different team mates, and different coaches. Let's revisit this in three years or five years. At the time of the draft I thought Jimmer was a sure fire hit eventually in hitting three pointers. This he would do at an elite level. Perhaps eventually he WILL be what we wanted. I certainly don't think a year under Westphal and Smart teaches us a lot except he improved and you can't expect much more. Leonard was known to be a defensive player with large hands which, by the way, seems to be a measurement of high importance. He entered a great team with a great coach. Projecting out a few years and considering our team needed a shooter and a SF defender, it seemed that Jimmer would be the excellent shooter eventually and Leonard had less of an upside. I thought Jimmer would be the firepower off the bench and that Leonard could be a starter but that there were better defending SFs eventually available. If this all goes down ideally we will get Davis but second best is MKG and third best might be Barnes. If we are in the position to get either of those and already have Leonard, then what would we do with Leonard? We could end up with MKG and Jimmer which eventually might look pretty darn good.

Drafting is not an exact science.

The story has yet to be completed.
 
Glenn said:
Drafting is not an exact science.

The story has yet to be completed.
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Thank you. Our mistakes are exaggerated here. Consider Memphis:
1) traded Pau for (at the time) peanuts
2) traded Kevin Love for OJ Mayo on draft night
3) drafted Thabeet over Harden, Tyreke, Rubio, and Curry
4) gave a max salary to Rudy Gay

I think this board would need a server upgrade to handle the whining here if we had made those moves...and yet the Grizzlies are a playoff team while we are still in the cellar. Mistakes can be made in this business but you also need some luck and to put a cohesive team together. We can still get there with the right moves. Missing on Leonard or drafting Douby however many years ago is not the nail in the coffin.
 
This is actually a good thing. Motivation to show up the doubting Thomas' will drive what IT does this summer and next season.
 
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I was a bit surprised with the 1st team snub, like someone said above IT will want to prove people wrong, which can never be a bad thing.

at least he's motivated to improve.
 
JB_kings said:
This is actually a good thing. Motivation to show up the doubting Thomas' will drive what IT does this summer and next season.
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Nice.

Btw, some personal disclosure: I'm a pun FREAK. I'm also into competitive punning. So keep your eyes out for puns from me. You'll have to let me know if/when you spot them to prove that you get it.

That was a pretty good one. I give it a 7.6.
 
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