I grabbed the image above from over at ClipperBlog.com who grabbed it from the Official NBA release.

Now the first place winner was an obvious choice (even though I was pushing for Brook).  I know it isn’t really a big deal and maybe I am just looking for a reason to complain, but seriously?  O.J. Mayo in second and Brook in third?  Really?  It wasn’t even close either, I mean seriously what were these voters thinking?

Now I already broke down the reasons why Brook Lopez was better than Derrick Rose, so I am not going to do it again here (Although if you use the transitive property, if Brook’s numbers were better than Rose’s they HAVE to be better than O.J. Mayo’s).  I guess I was just a little surprise that’s all.

If you would have told me that Ryan Anderson was going to start 30 games for the Nets this year, I would have been surprised.  Not because I didn’t like him as a player, but when he was drafted last year with the 21st selection, I pictured Ryan Anderson as more of a Steve Novak/Jason Kapono type of player.  Someone who would come in, shoot some threes, and come out.

However that wasn’t the case, Ryan showed a more complete game than anyone thought he had this year, and for the final 30 games he was starting as our 4 (some of it was due to the poor play of Yi, but Ryan played well enough to earn the starts).

In his 19.9 minutes per game, Anderson averaged 7.4 PPG and 4.7 RPG, but what impressed me most was his ability to improve his ball handling throughout the year.  Now he is far from being a great ball handler, but if you look at his early games where he would catch, face, and either shoot or pass you can tell that he has come a long way in that department.

Ryan is a tweener and can play either the 3/4 but he has weaknesses in both spots.  If he were to play the 3, he is a little too slow to cover the quicker wing type players and when he plays the 4, most nights his lack of size leads to mismatches.  In my opinion, he needs to either work on his speed or his strength this offseason so he can break out of that tweener mold and have a set position.  I personally would love to see him playing the three next year that way we could have Vince Carter move back to the 2 (But this all depends on who we draft, if we draft a 3, Ryan will see most of his time at the 4 again this year).

Yes I am going to be using this picture every time I mention these three rookies.  The Nets’ rookies were a real bright spot this season.  All three made significant contributions during the year (Brook Lopez throughout the season/Ryan Anderson towards the second half of the season/CDR towards the tail-end of the season), which is something that usually doesn’t happen (especially when you got a second rounder thrown in there).  I am going to be looking at them one by one.  In this post, I am going to be looking at Brook Lopez.

Brook Lopez

Brook Lopez is every one’s number two Rookie of the Year this year.  I knew he was going to be a great player, but I thought it was going to take a year or two.  False.  Brook has been a dominant force on both ends of the court.  In my mind he is a franchise type center.

Lets look at his numbers.

• Brook played in every Nets’ game and averaged 30.5 Minutes Per Game.  Brook scored 13.0 PPG (11th among NBA centers/6th among rookies) and averaged 8.1 RPG (14th among NBA centers/2nd among rookies).  Add in his 1.8 BPG (9th among all NBA players) and you have the complete package.

What he did well?

• He didn’t foul.  Brook only averaged 3.1 fouls per game.  With a guy who gets as many blocks as Brook did (especially as a rookie) this is a great thing.  Compare this to Greg Oden, the guy who was supposed to be the defensive stopper among rookies.  Greg had 3.9 fouls per game in about 10 minutes less time.  In terms of blocks per foul, Brook averaged 1.02 blocks per foul.  Greg Oden had 0.45 blocks per foul.  This can be attributed to his knowledge of the game, solid footwork, and fantastic timing.

• He was fantastic from the line.  Yes, I said fantastic.  Brook shot 79.3% from the line (10th among NBA centers).

What he needs to improve on:

• Crashing the offensive boards. Of his 8.1 rebounds per game, only 2.7 are on the offensive side.  If he gets that number up to around 3.5 or 4, it would be fantastic.  Now I think this comes with experience.  The more shots you see go up, the better you will be at reading the bounces off the rim.  He can also spend some time this offseason watching some tape and seeing how defenders boxed him out this year, then he can work on some techniques that will help him grab more boards.

• He needs to expand his range. Let’s take a look at his shot chart.

• Brook was 333-549 from right under the basket.  Which is real good, but look at the number of shot attempts he got away from the basket.  He only took 303 (35% of his shots) attempts away from the basket, and only hit 106 of them (34.9%).  If I can pick up on this, teams are going to be able to as well.  Teams are not going to let him catch it as deep as he has been, and they will try to force him to make his catches farther away from the basket.  This offseason I really want to see Brook expand his range.  I am not even talking foul line extended, I am talking like 8-10 foot range (Think Yao), and if he does that, he will be pretty hard to cover.

The outlook for next year

Brook has the ability to become a 20-10 guy next year, and that is no exaggeration.  I really think that this will happen.  Over the year Brook has displayed a work ethic that shows me he will work hard this upcoming season to improve the flaws in his game.