OKC Thunder: Shakeup at the top of TI’s week 7 rookie ladder

At this point barring a major injury an abrupt regression caused by smashing into the rookie wall, four rookies appear cemented to finish All-Rookie at season end. OKC Thunder top pick Josh Giddey is in that group.

While Cade Cunningham continues to improve it also feels fairly certain the Rookie of the Year is a two-horse race and one that’s already created plenty of controversy between the two fan bases of those two players.

OKC Thunder: Shakeup at the top of Intentions week 7 rookie ladder

I’m referring to Cavaliers rookie Evan Mobley and Raptors rook Scottie Barnes. Again, injury can certainly impact the situation given how close things are at the top. At the moment the Eastern rookie race is being decided based on wins while Giddey is getting credit in the West for checking off numerous boxes.

Cunningham resembles Giddey in that respect but he’s got a ton of ground to make up on Mobley and Barnes to knock them off the top two rungs. While Cade and Josh also have some distance between themselves (in this scribe’s opinion) and the next tier down. Franz Wagner and Chris Duarte most frequently are in the top five plus a handful of other impressive rookies.

One major factor distancing the top two is unlike the majority of the rookies in this upper echelon Barnes and Mobley aren’t given carte blanche because their teams (to this point) are vying for playoff seeds. If they make mistakes or aren’t performing they’ll get subbed out which happened to Barnes recently and he responded when he subbed back in by upping his defensive intensity.

Ironically, given the OKC Thunder are tanking the same is somewhat true of Giddey as Mark Daigneault wants him to grow and develop with the right habits. Whereas in the cases of Cunningham and Wagner specifically they are being left on the floor to play through the errors.

With that let’s see who makes Intentions top five rookie ladder for week seven.