Usually my gut reaction is to just shred the voters when the NBA’s annual awards are announced. Because there always are some loopy choices.
Except, with the All-Rookie teams announced Wednesday, I don’t hate it. First, so what we know we are talking about, here is your NBA All-Rookie first team:
Blake Griffin, L.A. Clippers
John Wall, Washington
Landry Fields, New York
DeMarcus Cousins, Sacramento
Gary Neal, San Antonio
While we’re at it, here’s the NBA All-Rookie second team:
Greg Monroe, Detroit
Wesley Johnson, Minnesota
Eric Bledsoe, L.A. Clippers
Derrick Favors, Utah
Paul George, Indiana
I don’t hate it, not even as we move down the list of guys who didn’t make the cut. I’d really like to know who voted Omer Asik of the Bulls on the All-Rookie first team, but that’s back to our always-bothersome transparency issue.
You can make an argument that Monroe deserved to be on the first team and would have been if voters could have actually stomached watching more Pistons games. But I’m good with Cousins being your center on that first lineup and saying he had a better year than Monroe. As with all things Detroit, blame coach John Kuester for this problem. If you ant to put Monroe on the first team for Neal (and forget positioning), that makes sense to me, but either way I’m not that troubled.
