Cool! Not surprising, but cool!
Barnes averaged 15.3 points, 7.5 rebounds, 3.5 assists, 1.1 steals, and 0.7 blocks per game as a rookie. He’s gotta win, right? Certainly. He just put up one of the greatest playoff debut games for a rookie of all time. For real, there’s a million ways to describe it numerically, but try this one: his Box Plus/Minus, a single-number metric from Basketball Reference, was the 14th-highest ever for a rookie playing in his first playoff game. You know who was 15th? Michael Jordan.
Obviously that doesn’t matter for this award. But still. What a season. He’s gotta win. Right?
