Brand, Francis Share Award NEW YORK, May 11 - Elton Brand of the Chicago Bulls and Steve Francis of the Houston Rockets, who both enjoyed stellar first-year campaigns, today were named co-winners of the 1999-2000 Schick Rookie of the Year Award. Brand and Francis each received 58 of a possible 121 votes from a nationwide panel of sports writers and broadcasters. This marks the third time the Schick Rookie of the Year Award has been shared. Dave Cowens of Boston and Geoff Petrie of Portland tied in 1970-71, and Detroit's Grant Hill and Dallas' Jason Kidd were named co-winners in 1994-95. Brand, the first selection overall by the Bulls in the 1999 NBA Draft, averaged 20.1 points, 10.0 rebounds and 1.63 blocks, leading all rookies in those categories, and his rebounding total ranked seventh in the entire NBA. The MVP at the Schick Rookie Challenge during NBA All-Star 2000, Brand became just the 19th player in NBA history to average at least 20.0 points and 10.0 rebounds in his first season. The 6-8 forward from Duke garnered Schick Rookie of the Month honors for January and February, and co-Schick Rookie honors with Francis for April. Top performances this season included a career-high 44 points with 12 rebounds on April 13 against Washington and a career-high eight blocks against Detroit on Dec. 29. Francis, the second overall selection the 1999 NBA Draft, led all rookies in assists (6.6 apg), was second in scoring (18.0 ppg) and third in steals (1.53 spg), and took home Schick Rookie of the Month honors for December and March and joined Brand for co-Schick Rookie honors in April. The 6-3 guard from Maryland was selected by Vancouver in last year's draft and was acquired by the Rockets in a trade on Aug. 27, 1999. Among his season highlights was scoring a career-high 34 points against the Los Angeles Clippers on March 23, and being named NBA Player of the Week for Jan. 17-23, as he averaged 22.3 points, 9.8 assists and 5.5 rebounds. The voting panel for the Schick Rookie of the Year award consisted of 34 national media members and three media members from each of the league's 29 cities. Attached are this year's voting results and the all-time list of winners: ------------------ What now ?
How sweet it is! Next year, we'll be wondering if he's going to win MVP. ------------------ humble, but hungry.
That would be something !! Even if he was in the race for it would be awsome ... How about him making his first All star start and lead the West to a big fat W . I really have to add some thoughts into this, ok sharing the reward is nice and all but I truly feel that in a way this was a PR move by the NBA, after the fiasco with Vancouver the NBA must have felt pressure in that if they made Francis the only winner they would have set a precedent in rookies choosing where they go and then rewarding them for it as saying that it's ok.... but at the same time they realized the marketing potential that Francis has, and boy oh boy does he have so much marketing potential ! Francis can be marketed in so many ways and be accepted by the general public more easily specially since he is not this big 6'9 freak of nature guy. He represents more of the general public at 6'3 (really he is not that tall am 5'10 and when I talked to him a wile ago he was just slightly taller then me about 6'1.5 ) he can be appreciated that much more, lets face it, he's badass ! He has energy to spare, looks like a 13 yr old jumping around in exuberance after a big basket, wants to learn (coachable) doesn't give any problems to anyone other than the opposition, is willing to talk to the media (and we all know how much they love that!), doesn't have this big thick heavy foreign accent (please no offense intended as I personally have one too), he is a dunking machine wish means plenty of highlight footage from ESPN, cannot be ignored by the national media specially after this award. If the award had been given to Brand then there would have been plenty of folks talking about how the NBA screwed up and missed on a great opportunity in being able to hype a player with Francis potential as a player and as a marketing king. Don't get me wrong I will not take any credit away from Brand , he did have a great 1st yr. too but his situation was totally different then Francis was, he was his team primary scorer but to his credit he responded in a great way. Francis has another good guard to share the ball with (Cat) and other players that can shoot too and lets not forget Francis is a point guard and is supposed to get others involved in order to win. Yeah, he could go up there and put up 20-25 shot attempts but he is not like that, he thinks team first and personal glory is second specially if it is the difference between a W or an L. In a way I feel as this was a punishment directed at Francis because of what happened last summer, the NBA did not feel like listening to the national media talk about "how can they do that after what he did" bullcrap. ------------------ What now ? [This message has been edited by 3pointer (edited May 11, 2000).]
I see Odom got 3 votes and Andre Miller got 2 .Didnt someone post a thread saying they would tie at 58 ?? ------------------ Dont do today what you can put of until tomorrow
I did in an other thread ,but that was just pure luck,I said exactly how many votes each player would get (including odom and miller). Guess I should go now to vegas and win some money to take all of you to a game ------------------ NEVER underestimate the heart of a champion!!! [This message has been edited by Rocket Guard (edited May 11, 2000).]
Nice one Rocket Guard ! that was amazing ------------------ Dont do today what you can put of until tomorrow
For what it's worth dept.: I was in LA on business when the announcement was unofficially made. The ensuing debate by the people that I was surrounded by, including: sports media people, sports medicine people, sports administrators with more than a few NBA (and CBA) people was .... complete consenus, "good move". Actually the feeling was that .... had Francis had a couple more spots, that is move up in one or two categories, he would have had the ROY by himself. Brand had the numbers. Francis had the better "court showing". Not lost in the arguements/discussions was the fact that Mobely's great season probably took numbers and focus away from Steve's great performance. Brand on the other hand, was blatantly obvious in the anemic Bulls team. Anyway, I was proud of the kid. Cheers. [This message has been edited by popeye (edited May 11, 2000).]
RIGGED! Steve got the shaft. No way should he have had to share the Rookie of the Year award. Definitely rigged so that Chicago could be in there but it would have been to blatant an outrage to give it only to Brand. Houston got shafted by the NBA and media again! WAY TO GO STEVIE! YOU DESERVED IT AND DESERVED IT ALONE! ------------------
