The NBA Rookie of the Year race has legitimate drama, but only because the frontrunner missed several weeks due to an injury. With LaMelo Ball on the verge of returning to action for the Charlotte Hornets, let\u2019s see where this race exists with just a few weeks left in the regular season.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
LaMelo Ball, Charlotte Hornets<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The younger brother of Lonzo Ball might have the better NBA career. LaMelo is averaging close to 16 points, six rebounds, and six assists, a terrific stat line for a player who wasn\u2019t even a member of the Hornets\u2019 starting five at the beginning of this NBA season. Ball played relatively limited minutes in the early weeks of the season before he was given a chance to start and play more minutes as the season wore on. Ball has averaged 19.5 points per game in the games he started for Charlotte. The rest of the NBA Rookie of the Year field has not been as consistent as Ball, so even though the Hornets\u2019 rookie has missed several weeks of play, he is still in first place. Anthony Edwards has to make a very strong closing argument in order to change the conversation, but Ball and the Hornets are going to make the playoffs, which is something Edwards of Minnesota and Tyrese Haliburton of the Sacramento Kings won\u2019t be able to claim. This remains Ball\u2019s award to lose\u2026 and there\u2019s not much he can do to lose it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Anthony Edwards, Minnesota Timberwolves<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The Anthony Edwards candidacy is based on extremely strong performances in the second half of the season. Edwards is averaging nearly 10 points per game more after the All-Star break compared to what he averaged before the All-Star break. He has surged in the Rookie of the Year debate and has probably eclipsed Tyrese Haliburton for second place. Edwards has become an explosive scorer, and what has helped him was the Timberwolves\u2019 midseason coaching change. He has found new direction and inspiration after that move. Everyone around the league has seen Edwards\u2019 transformation over the course of the season, but there is also an awareness that Edwards hasn\u2019t been as consistent as Ball over the entire length of the season.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Tyrese Haliburton, Sacramento Kings<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The Sacramento Kings have been a bad team, much like Anthony Edwards\u2019 Minnesota Timberwolves. This has hurt Haliburton\u2019s argument in the Rookie of the Year race, and it also means that Edwards\u2019 huge point-scoring games in the past two months have given him a national profile Haliburton lacks. Haliburton\u2019s argument is that he has been more consistent than Edwards while not being injured the way Ball was\u2026 but that consistency hasn\u2019t had many spectacular moments or overwhelming performances. Haliburton\u2019s inability to leave an especially memorable imprint on the NBA season probably has him in third place in this chase, not second.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Immanuel Quickley, New York Knicks<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The fourth-place finisher in this competition is likely to be Quickley, who has provided bench scoring and 3-point shooting for the overachieving New York Knicks. Contributing to a playoff team in a visible media market gives Quickley the kind of boost other second-tier Rookie of the Year candidates don\u2019t have. Quickley hasn\u2019t been the volume scorer who can threaten for a top-two position in this race, but a top-four spot isn\u2019t bad at all.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The NBA Rookie of the Year race has legitimate drama, but only because the frontrunner missed several weeks due to…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":16865,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[134],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16863","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nba"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16863","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16863"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16863\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16866,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16863\/revisions\/16866"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16865"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16863"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16863"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16863"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}