2010 NBA Preview: Who Will Take the Rookie of the Year Award

The Rookie of the Year in the NBA is a very prestigious award; legends like, Wilt Chamberlain, Michael Jordan, Larry Bird, and Tim Duncan --just to name a few-- have all won the Eddie Gottlieb Trophy.

The front-runners for this year's award are point guard John Wall and power forward Blake Griffin. But other top picks, such as Evan Turner and Paul George could make a great impact on their teams and their ROY chances.

Paul George and Xavier Henry won’t have a lot of minutes so their chances seem slim,  while DeMarcus Cousins chances are even slimmer. The last center to win the award was Emeka Okafor in ’04 and the last true C was Shaquille O’Neal in ’92, and Cousins is a work in process.

Four out of the last five ROY winners have been guards. All of them played more than 35 minutes in their rookie season, and they’ve all averaged at least 16 points per game. That gives the advantage to Wall; aside from being a PG, he’s going to be the starter for the Washington Wizards and he has the explosiveness to score 20 PPG.

Blake Griffin is technically in his rookie year, since he hasn’t played an NBA game, even though he was drafted in ’09 by the Clippers. Griffin should get a lot of minutes and has a strong supportive cast. But players at his position get injured often and getting injured last year raises a red-flag.

Evan Turner was great at Ohio State and is definitely my dark horse here. He should complement Andre Iguodala well in Philly. The only problem I see is that he probably won’t score a lot, yet if he does get into a rhythm he could be the best rookie.

John Wall has simply a better situation with the Wizards than Griffin and Turner have.  Nevertheless we can’t forget that Blake Griffin was the favorite last year.

John Wall has 50 percent chance of winning it, while Griffin has 20 percent and Turner 15 percent. The remaining votes were divide between the rest of the rookies.

This article courtesy of Sports Haze