Sacramento Kings: Where Marvin Bagley stands in Rookie of the Year race

The competition: Deandre Ayton

Doncic is widely considered the favorite for this award, but we would be remiss to ignore some of the other horses in this race.

Deandre Ayton was the first overall pick, so logically, he should be the best rookie. However, only 22 first overall picks have ever won the ROY award. Even though some former first overall players haven’t panned out, Ayton looks like a future All-Star just 65 games into his career. He had a health speed bump toward the end of January, where he missed six consecutive games due to an ankle injury. Aside from that, the Bahamian big man has remained healthy.

Ayton has been very productive on the offensive side of the floor for Phoenix in his short career. He is playing 31 minutes per game, the second-highest average among all rookies. In his given playing time, Ayton is contributing 16.2 points and 10.3 rebounds per game, which are third and first among first-year players, respectively. His numbers stand up nicely to his peers, but let’s take a deeper look into Ayton’s production.

The Suns’ big man has a PIE of 13.9, VORP of 1.3, BPM of 0.5, and a 60.6 true shooting percentage. Ayton had an incredible December or 17.6 points and 11.8 rebounds per game, but he has slightly dropped off in the new year. Recency tends to play a big factor in awards like Rookie of the Year, so this will hurt Ayton’s odds.