NBA: The 25 worst players to ever win Rookie of the Year

NBA: The 25 worst players to ever win Rookie of the Year: 15. Alvan Adams

One of the greatest players in Oklahoma basketball history, Alvan Adams earned a similar distinction for a Phoenix Suns franchise he played all of his career games with. After the Suns took him fourth overall in the 1975 NBA Draft, Adams would play 13 years with the team, and still ranks highly on the franchise leaderboards for many statistics.

Stop me if you’ve heard this before, but Adams’ highest-scoring season was his rookie one. He certainly wasn’t a one-hit wonder, as he would average at least 14 points per game in nine of his first ten seasons. That rookie year was special, however, as Adams earned his sole All-Star nod and was a part of a Suns team that made a surprise run to the NBA Finals.

While he would settle in as more of an above-average starter than a star, he was still an important part of nine playoff teams in his first ten years before Adams and the Suns began to fade later in his career.

Adams received 92 percent of the vote in a landslide Rookie of the Year victory. The runner-up was Gus Williams, who had a roughly similar career in quality to Adams. Darryl Dawkins, known by many as “Chocolate Thunder,” had a tumultuous career after joining the league straight out of high school. The only player with a clearcut better case than Adams to being the best player of this draft class was David Thompson, the first overall pick, who chose to join the ABA instead of the NBA.