The ROY race is shaping up. The top six candidates IMO: Drew Gooden Caron Butler J Williams Nine Hilario Amare Stoudamire Yao Ming Feel free to argue your case for Dan Gadzuric or Gordan Giricek. Gooden looks to have the early lead over J Will for ROY, but Ming has the fewest minutes per game by far. Looking at the top 8: * four foreigners and four home grown (calling Kenny Smith, answer the white courtesy phone) * 5 in the West and 3 in the East. Other than Gadzuric, all of the big men are in the West. * for the second year in a row, the Grizz have a ROY candidate and two of the top rookies in the league. My projected Rookie All-Star lineup (8 players?) PG: J Will SG: G Giricek SF: C Butler PF: D Gooden C: Yao M Bench: A. Stoudemire, N. Hilario, and Ginobili (need another guard). Let's see how this holds up. Edit: Gadzuric went to UCLA for four years - make it 5 - 3 U.S.
I definitely think Giricek is in the running. He's played better than both Stoudemire and Hilario, and even Ming (although Ming hasn't gotten the minutes). But, right now, the ROY would be Drew Gooden.
Would the NBA let Griffin participate in the rookie game on the sophmore team, even though he wasn't in the game last year? This is going to be a helluva rookie game if everyone stays healthy...
Yes, i'm pretty sure he'll be eligible. I think there were sophomores in last years game that weren't in the rookie game the year before.
I picked Caron Butler to when ROY before he was drafted, and I will stick to it. He is my top 10 rookies. 1. Caron Butler 2. Drew Gooden 3. Gordan Giricek 4. Jay Williams 5. Yao Ming 6. Nene Hilario 7. Amare Stoudemire 8. Pat Burke 9. Dan Gadzuric 10. Emanuel Ginobili