Lopez for ROY?

[kevC]

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/columns/s ... iem-090313

It's what I've been saying. Except, I would take a step further and give it to Gasol since he leads all rookies in winshares by a fairly large margin but either are more deserving than the "consensus two". Just because you play a shit ton of minutes mediocrely and end up with big per game numbers, doesn't mean you're helping.

Here's the winshare list:

http://www.basketball-reference.com/fc/ ... rder_by=ws

[Andrew]

I personally wouldn't dismiss the "consensus two" so readily but I do think Lopez has to be one of the top candidates, no question. It's turning out to be quite a good rookie class; I won't go ahead and make comparisons to strong classes from the past just yet since they're still just slightly off having a full season under their belts but it's looking like they'll establish themselves as a good class all the same.

[Lamrock]

I support Lopez for ROY, but it will probably come down to whether or not NJ gets the eighth seed because sportswriters are lame like that.

[Hoyasaxa]

Don't really think sportswriters judge team success much for ROY, that's more so of an MVP thing. The only argument against Lopez is that he doesn't dazzle the average sports fan as much since his scoring averages aren't as flashy as those of Eric Gordon or OJ Mayo. But still, he's probably the most complete rookie [offensively and defensively] out there right now. I can reasonably see him as a player who eventually works up to 20-10 and 2bpg in a few years. He'll be one of the league's premier big men, at this rate. Too bad the Nets couldn't draft a kid like this a few years back when VC/Kidd/RJ were all around and the Nets desperately needed just an inside player to complete an Eastern Conference run.

[Andrew]

I could see him pushing those numbers depending on his teammates and subsequent place in the pecking order in a few years time. He's already basically there with the blocks and his 2.8 boards per game at the offensive end already boost his overall average up to 8. With his shooting percentage (especially from the free throw line), it's not unfeasible that his scoring could be around 15 or higher within the next couple of years. If he's getting around 36 minutes per game within a few years, 20 and 10 - or a shade under it - isn't too unreasonable.