Suns’ Deandre Ayton finishes third in Rookie of the Year voting
Jun 24, 2019, 6:50 PM | Updated: 6:51 pm
(Photo by Christian Petersen/Getty Images)
(Photo by Christian Petersen/Getty Images)
After being named a finalist for Rookie of the Year, it was revealed Monday that Suns center Deandre Ayton finished third in voting.
Dallas’ Luka Doncic won the award with 98 of the 100 first place vote. Atlanta’s Trae Young finished second and earned the other two votes.
Ayton received one second place vote while earning 63 third place votes.
The 20-year-old’s rookie season was the most efficient historically given his production levels. Ayton is one of 35 rookies to average at least 16 points and 10 rebounds a game and his 60.8 TS% is the best of them all. Ayton is the third rookie this decade to average a double-double, joining Blake Griffin and Karl-Anthony Towns.
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Most years, that’s good enough to win the award, but it was stiff competition for Ayton this season.
Doncic’s line of 21.2 points, 7.8 rebounds and 6.0 assists per game has only been done once in league history by a rookie and that’s all the way back to Oscar Robertson in 1961. As a multi-faceted playmaker and scorer, Doncic was efficient as well, posting a 54.5 TS%. Among the 16 rookies in league history to average at least 20 points and four assists a game, that true shooting percentage ranks fourth behind Robertson, Michael Jordan and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
Young rode a late-season surge where he put up All-Star numbers after the All-Star break. He became the 14th rookie in NBA history to average at least eight assists a game, and only Robertson (30.5) scored more per game than Young (19.1) among that group. To repeat the theme of efficient rookies, Young’s 53.9 TS% is third among those 14 players.
