More than two months have passed since the end of the 2018-19 NBA regular season but, on Monday evening, the league’s official awards were (finally) handed out in Santa Monica. One of the night’s marquee award announcements was the intriguing battle between Dallas Mavericks youngster Luka Doncic and Atlanta Hawks point guard Trae Young for Rookie of the Year honors but, in the end, Doncic picked up the trophy and completed what amounted to a wire-to-wire run to the award.
Here's the ROY's speech! pic.twitter.com/uQyVMqz4zi
— Dallas Mavericks (@dallasmavs) June 25, 2019
The 20-year-old from Slovenia finished the season with per-game averages of 21.2 points, 7.8 rebounds and 6.0 assists, entering the night as a significant betting favorite to land in the top spot. Doncic’s efficiency did tumble a bit down the stretch of the campaign but, all told, he carried an immense workload in Dallas and did so with a 19.6 PER and 54.5 percent true shooting.
Doncic’s top challenger was Young, who beat out Phoenix Suns center Deandre Ayton for the runner-up spot. Young was the winner of four NBA Rookie of the Month awards in the Eastern Conference and he finished the season averaging 19.1 points and 8.1 assists per game in 81 appearances. Young struggled in well-documented fashion during the month of November but, in an overall sense, he was spectacular for the Hawks, posting a 17.0 PER and 54 percent true shooting while exhibiting some of the league’s best passing acumen. In addition, he joined Doncic as the league’s only unanimous All-Rookie selections.
The voting ended up being far more lopsided than the debate around the award towards the end of the season would have indicated — which shouldn’t be much of a surprise. Doncic got 98 of the 100 first place votes, while Young was second on 97 ballots (and someone not top 3 on one of them). Much like last year’s debate with Donovan Mitchell before Ben Simmons got over 90 percent of the vote, the voters saw this as a pretty clear cut decision.
When the award was announced, it certainly wasn’t a surprise to hear that Doncic was the winner, as his productivity from start to finish was remarkably impressive. There should be kudos given to Young for making things interesting down the stretch, though, and the two teams are in fantastic shape with their youthful centerpieces on the heels of the thoroughly litigated trade on the night of the 2o18 draft.
