Just found this on ESPN, Pat Pat gettin some for love from ESPN. Hes on the first team for most improved rookies: http://insider.espn.go.com/nba/insider/columns/story?columnist=thorpe_david&page=Rookies-110330 Patrick Patterson, Rockets Early in the season, we wondered whether Patterson would do anything during his rookie season. Then, on New Year's Eve, he put up 15 points and 10 boards in 25 minutes, showing the Rockets that they had a talented backup forward waiting his turn. When Luis Scola went down with an injury in early March, Patterson exploded. He moved into the starting lineup, improved the Rockets' defense overall and earned three straight double-doubles (all Rockets wins). He played so well, in fact, that now there is fair conjecture about what Houston should do at the power forward position -- keep the high-scoring Scola or make room for Patterson, who is absolutely ready to be a starting 4 in this league? Patterson's journey from role player during his junior season at Kentucky, to struggling summer-league rookie, to not playing for the first two months of the season, to now being in the rotation on one of the hottest teams in the league earns him our MIP runner-up.
Why does everyone skip/ignore the fact that he was the featured player in the Kentucky offense before Cousins and Wall came? He averaged almost an 18/10 his sophomore year.
The national media have absolutely no clue about Patrick Patterson's short Rockets career thus far. They just look at the box scores and see that he was "sent down to the D-League" and then use that as the basis for thinking that he has "greatly improved" since he was drafted or that he didn't show anything before recently. (Hell, that summer league comment is just flat wrong. He had a good summer league.) Most media don't understand that the Rockets run basketball operations for the RGV Vipers and that sending a player (who is not then in the Rockets' rotation) down there is actually a GOOD thing. The Rockets WANTED Patterson on the Vipers BECAUSE he is a good young player who needed to get big minutes in order to continue what they viewed as a potentially high career trajectory. I am not the least bit surprised by Patterson's performance overall this season (although, given what Morey originally stated about his role this year, it is surprising that he is already getting this many minutes, but that is largely due to Jordan Hill not progressing as the Rockets had hoped).
Yall see how I feel when people start talking about UK players when they only know the surface information. Glad that Patrick gets some attention though