NBA Rookie of the year: 5 Best NBA rookies of all time
Isn't it difficult to recruit a novice into the professional circuit, keeping faith in their skills and abilities of their amateur course?
Those of us who have gone through their first job recruitment process will agree with the fact that it's not an easy task. NBA teams drafting rookies is a regular business as you need to fill the gap left by the veterans retiring and the players swapping teams. But making them start games is showing a lot of confidence in a player's talent.
This eases out the initial glitch for the players. Many rookies are drafted each year. Most rookies take time to adjust to the professional demands of the game and start to flourish only in later years. While there are some who take the league by storm and make it count by starting to taste success from the word go. These are the ones who are able to payback the most to the teams and their trust.
Also read: The favorites to win NBA Rookie of The Year 2018-19
Here is a list of top 5 rookies in the history of the league.
#5 Tim Duncan
Tim Duncan was impressive right from the get-go as he was instrumental in improving the San Antonio Spurs' record of 20-62 in 1996-97 to 56-26 in his rookie season of 1997-98. He was the No. 1 pick in 1997 NBA draft, bagging the NBA rookie honors and followed it up with the first of his five NBA Championships.
Starting all the 82 regular- season games in his first professional year, he averaged 21 points, 11.9 rebounds, 2.7 assists and 2.5 blocks per game. He played 39.1 minutes on an average in each game of his first season and got elected to the NBA All-defensive second team in the same year. Tim Duncan had a successful career with many accolades that included three NBA Finals MVP and two NBA Most Valuable Player award.