The “rookie wall” is a real thing (I’ve seen it and it has all sorts of crude graffiti on it), and not only is it a real thing, but it’s a real thing that Collin Sexton succeed in running into head-first. I had been feeling like I hadn’t made a Collin Sexton highlight video in a while, and now that I’m looking at this game log, I can see why. Some rookies can climb over the rookie wall, or go around it, or lean against it while pondering life, but Sexton crashed his noggin into it, got a skull fracture, and died while gray matter seeped out of his nostrils. Check these lines out from his last eight games.
4-of-12, 15 points, 2 assists
4-of-13, 10 points, 7 assists
7-of-17, 18 points, 0 assists
6-of-15, 16 points, 3 assists
4-of-13, 13 points, 2 assists
3-of-10, 7 points, 3 assists
4-of-13, 12 points, 3 assists
4-of-17, 13 points, 2 assists
When you go further back, it doesn’t get much better. After starting the season as a relatively efficient player as rookie guards go, he completely cratered at the end of December and throughout all of January. Simultaneously, the Cavaliers endured a brutal stretch where they won one out of twenty games.
Yep, the rookie wall exists, and Collin Sexton’s body joins the pile of dead bodies that litter its base. I’m guessing that, in due time, it will spontaneously re-animate itself. But there are a lot of rookies who died at the wall and never came back to life.