Why are Rookies of the Year rarely playing in the postseason?
Ed Szczepanski-USA TODAY Sports
Andrew Wiggins’ season is over, but he still might have one more victory left in him for the 2014-15 NBA season.
According to a small sample poll given to close to twenty potential voters, Wiggins, the star who led the team with the league’s worst record, is the favorite to bring home the 2015 KIA Rookie of the Year award. Behind him is Nikola Mirotic, who is working on winning over some votes as he plays a vital role on a Bulls team looking to make their case as a title contender.
If it sounds odd that a player on the worst team in the league is the favorite over another that is contending in the playoffs, then you haven’t been watching the NBA for too long. This is an all too common occurrence when it comes to the Rookie of the Year award. Top first-year players rarely have a chance to make an impact in the postseason because their teams aren’t good enough to make it. It’s essentially a race to the bottom.
This idea becomes tough to swallow when you consider all of the elite players that have won the Rookie of the Year award: LeBron James, Chris Paul, Kevin Durant and Blake Griffin, none one of whom were able to play a single game in the playoffs in the same season. In fact, since the 2000-01 season, only three Rookies of the Year have made it into the postseason — Derrick Rose, Amar’e Stoudemire, and Mike Miller (yeah) — and each of those players were eliminated in the first round. To find a ROY that was able to make it at least two rounds in the playoffs, you’d have to go all the way back to the 1997-98 season when Tim Duncan was given the award and played on the San Antonio team that made it to the Western Conference Semifinals.
One of the major reasons there is such a lack of elite rookies in the postseason is the very same reason their team was able to draft them in the first place: their team was terrible. Until the system is fixed, bad teams are going to be rewarded with good players in the draft. And until those bad teams get better, the rookies are going to dominate the available minutes. Since 1960, only three Rookies of the Year winners have been drafted outside of the top ten picks — last year, Michael Carter-Williams was one of those (11th pick).
Carter-Williams is a prime example of a second reason why teams with ROYs have trouble making it to the postseason: the extremely high usage percentages for newbies. Here is a list of the last five NBA Rookies of the Year along with their usage percentages from their first season:
- Michael Carter-Williams – 25.7 percent
- Damian Lillard – 24.2 percent
- Kyrie Irving – 28.8 percent
- Blake Griffin – 27.3 percent
- Tyreke Evans – 26.2 percent
While that is quite a lot of involvement for guys who were some of the youngest on the court, it’s a symptom of rookies being the “go-to” player on a squad that is lacking a veteran. For reference, Nikola Mirotic, who shares the court with vets like Derrick Rose and Pau Gasol, has a usage closer to 22 percent.
The Bulls are able to work Mirotic into the offense, but not rely on him to carry it, which unsurprisingly has translated to a successful season. This is a perfect example of a rookie being utilized within his means and not a means to an end. The former strengthens teams and gives the young players an opportunity to fill an important role immediately; the latter throws them into the fire, trading a season of success for quick experience. It may be no wonder that only three ROYs since 2000 have won the NBA Finals at any point in their career — LeBron, Pau, and Mike Miller (YEAH) — and none were with the team that actually drafted them.
So, when Andrew Wiggins most likely receives his shiny 2015 KIA Rookie of the Year award in a few days, he will be following in the footsteps of many great players who weren’t in the postseason when accepting their award. Mirotic, on the other hand, will be focusing on how he can fit into his veteran lead squad in an effort to prolong their postseason. It’s debatable which one is more highly regarded — individual awards or team success — but other than a few instances (i.e. Omeka Okafor) the ROY honor belongs to pretty elite company who eventually find success; even if they have to go elsewhere to find it.