Cavs’ Mobley hanging on to #1 in Rookie Ladder; Raps’ Barnes impressing

Could Scottie Barnes be the de-facto winner?

It seems that in this Rookie of the Year race, there are two camps of people. The first are the ones who will dig in and defend Evan Mobley for the Rookie of the Year Award. The other people will do the same with Cade Cunningham.

But is there a possibility that Scottie Barnes sneaks up through the middle and wins the crown? Absolutely. In my opinion, Barnes has been the second-most impressive rookie this season. Cunningham has missed a lot of time due to injury, but has been impressive when he’s on the court. However, I think Barnes deserves the award a lot more than Cunningham.

Skill-wise, Cunningham might be the best in this draft class. Even still, that really doesn’t matter for the Rookie of the Year award. Barnes has played in 11 more games than Cunningham, and you could argue that he’s been more impressive on a much better team. The Raptors, as of this writing, have moved up to the fifth seed in the latest Eastern Conference standings. Barnes has averaged 15.5 points per game this season while also grabbing over 7.5 rebounds and dishing out over three assists.

No matter how the Rookie of the Year plays out, this has been a great season for rookies across the league.

Evan Mobley and Scottie Barnes have been great throughout the whole season, and Cade Cunningham has shown that he was worth the number one overall pick, when he’s on the court, this season. And after a disastrous first half of the season, second overall pick Jalen Green has been lighting it up, as noted by NBA.com’s Steve Aschburner, who authors the Ladder. Over the past week Green again aaveraged 32 points per game.

All of the rookies have had their time to shine this season. It’s just time to see who really wants the spotlight at the end.