Rookie Rankings: #1 and #3 go to ...

I wanted to jump on the David Thorpe is an idiot band wagon before this thread died.

Jennings at #1? Evans is good enough to miss three games and be ahead of the struggling Jennings. Casspi is making a profound impact, 18 ppg, 8 rbds in the last five games, and it doesn't even feel like an abberation, it's not even a huge step up from previous (before the five games) play. Stupid, stupid, stupid. What an idiot.

thorpe is definitely an idiot...

jennings is shooting a much better 3-pt percentage than evans, and leads evans by a little under 1 assist per game, but evans is dominating every other statistical category...

its not much of a close call between the two anymore if jennings' poor shooting continues...

if anything, omri is looking to edge jennings as the second-best pick in the draft to this point...
 
Besides shoot about 35% ever since his 55 point game?

Maybe his game of 9/3/3 last night put him over the top.

LOL!

I agree with Oskor. Tyreke should defiantly be #1. Sure, Jennings is a good player right now (and, IMO, he is going to be awesome in the coming years) but Tyreke owns him.
 
He appears to be updating. Note the differing dates for each player. As of today, he has Brandon Jennings first, Omri second and Tyreke third. Tyreke missing some games might have affected his drop to third by Thorpe? He had some "how to improve" comments on all three players, though.

If Thorpe would take some "how to improve on his rookie prognostications" he would still be an idiot.:p
 
Relax! :) He's done updating, I think. Casspi is back at #1, as he should - that is if you take last week only. Without any doubt, Casspi has out-performed any other rookie, including Evans (who's been injured, and missed 2 games).
 
Relax! :) He's done updating, I think. Casspi is back at #1, as he should - that is if you take last week only. Without any doubt, Casspi has out-performed any other rookie, including Evans (who's been injured, and missed 2 games).

His rankings have always appeared to be on a cumulative basis, not just recent play.
 
Except when it serves his purposes to do it differently. ;)

Today, they seem to be changing minute-by-minute. He must be getting real-time updates on what the guys are up to right now. Tyreke practices his jumper: up one spot! Omri hits the weights: up one spot! Jennings orders a double-cheeseburger: down two spots!
 
today, they seem to be changing minute-by-minute. He must be getting real-time updates on what the guys are up to right now. Tyreke practices his jumper: Up one spot! Omri hits the weights: Up one spot! jennings orders a double-cheeseburger: Down two spots!

haha :d
 
Today, they seem to be changing minute-by-minute. He must be getting real-time updates on what the guys are up to right now. Tyreke practices his jumper: up one spot! Omri hits the weights: up one spot! Jennings orders a double-cheeseburger: down two spots!

Jennings' new 'do has given him spasms.
 
Warriors or not, that was a historical rookie performance. Find me a King that had a single scoring game anywhere near that let alone in his first year.

I'm happier with Evans because he can clean gutters without a ladder, but nothing can take away from what Jennings did that day.

Webber had a 51 point game with 26 rebounds
 
...this isn't your run-of-the-mill entourage. "It's all about him," says Reggie Evans, Tyreke's older brother and legal guardian, who is leading the group by sticking to The Blueprint. "You think I'm afraid to say anything to him? Hell no," Reggie said. "Most (NBA players) have yes men, and they'll let guys go off the deep end, and they're afraid to get cut off (from the inner circle). That's not me. That's not us."


I'm really liking this...
 
I wanted to jump on the David Thorpe is an idiot band wagon before this thread died.

Jennings at #1? Evans is good enough to miss three games and be ahead of the struggling Jennings. Casspi is making a profound impact, 18 ppg, 8 rbds in the last five games, and it doesn't even feel like an abberation, it's not even a huge step up from previous (before the five games) play. Stupid, stupid, stupid. What an idiot.

Not sure why the list came out with Jennings as #1, but that just appears to be a technical mistake and in the article he moves Omri to #1 and Evans to #2. His reasoning being he was heavily weighting whoi was playing best over the last week.

Maybe that's a dumb way to list the rankings, but I read everything he does and Thorpe has been extremely high on Tyreke going all the way back to July when he put him at #2 behind Blake Griffin after summer league. So I'm not sure where all this venom is coming from. He moved Evans past Jennings in early December on his rookie rankings, and in general just keeps saying that Evans is a stud.

Here's his closing line in the Tyreke section of the 12/30 Rookie Rankings article:
"So January and beyond still looks awfully bright for arguably the best rookie we've seen in a few years."

http://insider.espn.go.com/nba/insider/columns/story?columnist=thorpe_david&page=Rookies-091230
 
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His rankings have always appeared to be on a cumulative basis, not just recent play.

It's been a bit of both. Evans gets consistency points, but if you look outside Evans, you see guys moving around based on recent play. Casspi was breaking his own scoring high over and over against title contending teams. That's enough to bump him up when the #1 guy was sitting out.

The Thorpe hate here makes me lol. He understood Evans strengths and weaknesses in summer league. He's not a Tyreke hater, just honest about his game. He's had Tyreke #1 or #2 most of the season. What he, nor anybody predicted, was Beno's sudden resurgence to ease the PG burden off of Evans.
 
I wanted to jump on the David Thorpe is an idiot band wagon before this thread died.

Jennings at #1? Evans is good enough to miss three games and be ahead of the struggling Jennings. Casspi is making a profound impact, 18 ppg, 8 rbds in the last five games, and it doesn't even feel like an abberation, it's not even a huge step up from previous (before the five games) play. Stupid, stupid, stupid. What an idiot.

You think Thorpe actually posts his own info?
He sends it to staff. If if you read the report Omri is #1, Evans #2 and Jennings #3.

They didn't get the rankings part done before the report came out. Omri was all over the NBA front page.
 
Almost a big of an idiot than the people who would have taken/wanted the 7 foot + thabust at #4.


:p


In Brickie's defense, raw big men like Thabeet does take a long time to develop. You never know, he still might turn out to be the Mutombo shotblocker that people projected. Might take 2-3 years though.
 
I know there's a lot of time left, but does anyone remember a team having both the winner AND runner up in the ROY vote? Even winner and 3rd place?
 
:p


In Brickie's defense, raw big men like Thabeet does take a long time to develop. You never know, he still might turn out to be the Mutombo shotblocker that people projected. Might take 2-3 years though.

Oh I haven't given up on him yet, in particular not with that coach and the two bigs ahead of him. All he has to do to equal my vision is end up as a 6pt 8reb 2.5blk in 25-28 minute man. Anything more would be gravy.

As an aside, one of the things that seperates me from the average internet dip is that I shift my feet, and fast. You rarely find me wandering around pissing in the wind after the lay of the land becomes more clear. I wasn't exactly on the Tyreke bandwagon by draft night, but I was fine with the pick -- the rumors from around the league about him tearing up the competition in drills had grown too loud and numerous to ignore. Thabeet was always the fallback pick if there were no stars available to be drafted. Once it appeared there might be one, well that always trumps (should be noted after tagging Jennings as one of my 4 top talents early, I had soured on his shaky attitude by draft night so might have made that mistake).

Back on topic BTW, its been an unending littany by Thorpe. First Reke wasn't a PG. Then he was a below the rim player. Then his numbers didn't mean anything because he was on a losing team, whereas Lawson was the ****. Then the night after he picked Arenas's pocket he's on the radio talking about how Reke is actually a ****ty defender but that Arenas juat made a classic error of trying to cross over a longer player (an error of course that Thorpe always teaches HIS players not to do). Same night he implied Reke was out of shape and that's why he didn't jump better. Then its shot selection. Then this. Damning with faint praise, or no praise at all. And does Omri being a client, does the threat to another of his clients (Kevin) factor into it? Who knows.
 
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Ah, well...I'm struggling to come up with another big rook tandem with a shot.

Should note there have been some good tandems, but just not potential superstar, then potential All Star tandems.

Durant/Green 07-08 -- both first team all rookie
Gordon/Deng 04-05 -- both first team all rookie
Wade/Haslem 03-04 -- one first team, one second tema all rookie
Gasol/Battier 01-02 -- both first team all rookie
Brand/Artest 99-00 -- both first tema all rookie

etc.
 
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Oh I haven't given up on him yet, in particular not with that coach and the two bigs ahead of him. All he has to do to equal my vision is end up as a 6pt 8reb 2.5blk in 25-28 minute man. Anything more would be gravy.

As an aside, one of the things that seperates me from the average internet dip is that I shift my feet, and fast. You rarely find me wandering around pissing in the wind after the lay of the land becomes more clear. I wasn't exactly on the Tyreke bandwagon by draft night, but I was fine with the pick -- the rumors from around the league about him tearing up the competition in drills had grown too loud and numerous to ignore. Thabeet was always the fallback pick if there were no stars available to be drafted. Once it appeared there might be one, well that always trumps (should be noted after tagging Jennings as one of my 4 top talents early, I had soured on his shaky attitude by draft night so might have made that mistake).

Back on topic BTW, its been an unending littany by Thorpe. First Reke wasn't a PG. Then he was a below the rim player. Then his numbers didn't mean anything because he was on a losing team, whereas Lawson was the ****. Then the night after he picked Arenas's pocket he's on the radio talking about how Reke is actually a ****ty defender but that Arenas juat made a classic error of trying to cross over a longer player (an error of course that Thorpe always teaches HIS players not to do). Same night he implied Reke was out of shape and that's why he didn't jump better. Then its shot selection. Then this. Damning with faint praise, or no praise at all. And does Omri being a client, does the threat to another of his clients (Kevin) factor into it? Who knows.

Thabeet's not even playing badly, he's just not playing much. The Kings should have an eye on how their C situation develops with Gasol being a free agent in 2011.

As for Thorpe on Evans. I read all his articles, I read all his chats. This is not the message he has been getting across at all. Read through his rookie card on ESPN.com and while he's often mentions "I'd like to See Evans to do XYZ" or "When Evans improves ABC he'll be even more unguardable"...but that's what he's paid to do. Overall its extremely straightforward and positive.

In addition to the "best rookie we've seen in a few years" quote from 12/30, here's another one from 12/9 in from the upside potential article:
"Evans is competitive and coachable, and he carries himself maturely on the court, so it seems very likely he'll nearly reach his full potential. If this were a ranking of who will actually become the best player of this class in seven years, he'd be No. 1."

Chad Ford on the other hand has been really slow to admit the mistake he made in being so critical.

This is insider content, kindly remove it if it violates the rules.
 
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Well for the last week, Evans missed games. That alone would have to move him down a bit.

Even if he was playing, Evan's 20/5/5 and Casspi's number's these couple of weeks (23/7/2 50+% fg, 45+%3pt) are very similar in impact. If Casspi can continue this same type of contribution for January (obviously he cannot shoot so well all the time, so I expect points to drop), Casspi could very well take the ROM award for January away from incumbent Evans.
 
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