NBA 2016-17 Season News and Updates: Top Contenders for Rookie of the Year; Ben Simmons and Brandon Ingram are Clear Forerunners
All thirty squads in the NBA 2016-17 season bolstered their lineup during the pre-season. The best place to start with is the NBA draft. This is the place where prospects and talents are lurking every year. The foremost aim is to find a player that displayed exceptional talent in college (sometimes high school) and give them a shot to the most popular league in the planet. So here is the list of the contenders for the next Rookie of the Year Award.
Number 1 draft pick pros and cons
The biggest pressure for NBA teams when picking from the draft lands on the lucky squad with the number one draft in their shuffle. The problem is, being a number one draft pick is not an indicator for a dominating performance in the hard court.
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History can prove that there are rookies who piled 25 points per game and another double in rebounds during their college years but ended up in the NBA bench. The players would then be traded later in the latter years or simply left forgotten in the free agency.
The best is when teams can acquire a number one pick having exceptional ability and skills on the court. For one, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar won six NBA MVP awards in his entire career. Jabbar was the number one pick. Recent players that stood out was LeBron James having four MVP titles.
Ben Simmons: The versatile player
2016-17 season's number one overall draft pick Ben Simmons tops the list of most likely to win Rookie of the Year. Simmons' stats vary from 40 percent to a staggering 56 percent accuracy, depending on who the analyst is. Simmons is presumed to be so good that Philadelphia 76ers will let him start in the game while playing a dual point and shooting positions. Don't rule out Simmons in rim defense though because he can also pull 7.8 rebounds per game.
Brandon Ingram: The 'tall' frontliner
Brandon Ingram is the second overall pick who will play with the Los Angeles Lakers. Although quite tall at 6'9 for a shooting guard position, Ingram can shoot a deadly 41 percent from the distance. Lakers coach Luke Walton came from the Golden State so he apparently adopted the style of coach Steve Kerr. He also said that long shots could be Ingram's specialty. Ingram averaged 17.3 points per game with the Duke.
Buddy Hield: Behind the arc specialist
Buddy Hield is one of the high rate scorer who will join the NBA this year with the Pelicans. If it is NBA's trend to shoot from behind the arc these days, Hield will surely fit in with unbelievable 45.7 percent from the three-point area.
He is even more lethal in the perimeter with 50 percent chance of sinking the basket. To add up, Hield is capable of bursting into 20-point results in halftime based on his record in Oklahoma. The only drawback that needs fixing is the equally high amount of turnovers that he commits.
