The 2016 draft class was at serious risk of not having any of its members average double-digit scoring in their rookie seasons. But wait! What’s that I see in the distance? It’s Malcolm Brogdon AKA The Junkyard Brog coming to save the floundering assemblage of his co-draftees with his 10.0 points per game! After averaging in the upper nines for a long time, Brogdon finally managed to drag his average over the ten-point mark!
If ROTY of the year voting were restricted to just members of the most recent draft class, you have to think that they wouldn’t even give out the award. Brogdon’s doing great for a second-round pick, but he would be by far the worst rookie of all time to win the award. Ten times worse than Mike Miller, and five times worse than Michael Carter-Williams, who at least had stats. But when you look at who else was drafted in 2016, it’s no surprise that none of them can average ten PPG. Hield will probably get there by the end of the year but then it’s just a bunch of late-bloomers (I won’t call them busts…yet).
So even if Brogdon is the only player from the class averaging double-digit points, which might not even happen if he has a stretch of bad games, it’s still the lamest draft ever in terms of rookies having good games. I honestly think I was spoiled by Towns, Porzingis, Okafor, and Turner coming right into the league and kicking people’s butts.