Thursday, October 12, 2006

NBA: Please Welcome Your Rookie of the Year

Is there any doubt that Adam Morrison is going to win Rookie of the Year?

Randy Foye and Brandon Roy may challenge. If Jason Kidd's knee gives out again, Marcus Williams will be passing to a couple of All-Star talents. So there are other contenders, for sure.

But none of those cats can hold a candle to Morrison (the man crying in the picture) ability in the clutch.

His team is absolutely set at PG with Raymond Felton, star in waiting, and Brevin Knight, the rare pass-first point that plays stellar defense. Gerald Wallace is one of the more exciting, complete SG/SF in the league... his only flaw is his shot. Emeka Okafor is currently listed as a PF but is a C in my eyes and should slide to provide elite interior defense at the pivot so the bruiser Sean May can bang downlow at PF.

Morrison will play with three recent NCAA champions in May, Felton and Okafor. All three were huge pieces to their respective championship teams. Morrison, on the other hand, impacted NCAA basketball similarly to NBA Champion and MVP Dwyane Wade.

Wade was too short for the NBA, but flat out took over big college games. Morrison is too slow for the NBA, has diabetes and sports a peach-fuzz mustache but none of those "limitations" prevented him from annihilating college competition. Both players dominated the NCAA at smaller schools and did not have the teammates that May, Felton and Okafor did.

Now, Morrison is joining the elite. They'll get him the ball to win games with a few seconds to win. Morrison is a gifted scorer who embraces The Moment.

When you know Morrison is going to drain some buzzer-beaters, the rest of the rookie class may as well forget about winning ROY.

Then again, Michael Jordan does own part of the Bobcats now... so if he saw the same thing in Morrison as he did in Kwame Brown, I retract this entire post.

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