Tuesday, March 14, 2017

Making the Case for: Dario Saric winning ROY

As the regular season is starting to wind down and the voting for the various awards get started, one of the yearly awards is drawing a debate unlike any other. While the MVP race is still wide open and will go down the wire, the Rookie of the Year is almost settled in most pundit's minds, and with good reason: Joel Embiid has been head and shoulders above the rest of the rookies this year. However, with the Sixers ruling him out for the rest of the year, and having played in only 31 games, I feel that it should disqualify him from being rookie of the year, due to the limited minutes and games that he played during the year.

In his stead I submit a case for his teammate, Dario Saric to be this year's Rookie of the year. Why do I think he should win the award over his more celebrated teammate? Well, let me present my case.

1.) He has played enough games

While seemingly inane, I find it necessary for an award winner to have played enough games during the season to be eligible for an award. As Tracy Mcgrady said in NBA's The Jump with Rachel Nichols, a player can play a limited number of games, average 30 [or more] points per game, but that would not necessarily make him the scoring champion. I have the same logic in mind. All the other awards look at a player's level of production over the span of a season.

As of this writing, Dario Saric has played in all of the 76ers games. That has to count for something. It shouldn't be the only reason he wins [and it isn't], but it has to account for something.

2.) He's past the rookie wall

While the "Rookie Wall" is an arguable point, it is a phenomena that has clearly been seen time and again with rookies trying to adjust to much shorter seasons to the grind of the NBA game, from back to backs, to 4 games in 5 nights, and just from a 30-40 game season to an 82 game run.

Dario Saric has gone through that period, played through it and has progressively gotten better stats. The same could not be said of Embiid, who not only played in limited games, but also in very controlled minutes during that time span.

3.) Much better stats the past two months

Ever since the calendar turned February, Dario Saric has produced comparable averages to Embiid's sparkling stats.

February: 17.0 ppg 7.9 rpg 2.8 apg 1.0 spg
March: 19.6 ppg 7.3 rpg 4.0 apg 0.9 spg

While this was also helped by an increase in playing time, the overall game of Saric has steadily improved, and just going by the numbers, are very much comparable to that of Embiid's, hence the gap is not as big as before. Overall, Embiid will still have a better, more impactful career, but just for this rookie season argument, Saric has put forward a solid case.

If Saric continues this pace up to the end of the season, I see no reason why a.) he shouldn't garner votes for rookie of the year, and b.) why it shouldn't be a travesty as many claim it to be. The other rookies in the class have been underwhelming. Rookie favorite Kris Dunn has struggled, and has not gotten enough playing time playing behind Ricky Rubio. Buddy Hield has shown flashes, but not nearly enough. Brandon Ingram is still learning his way through. The only other potential candidate, and he's an even further distant third, is Malcolm Brogdon of the Milwaukee Bucks.