OKC Thunder: Shakeup at the top of TI’s week 7 rookie ladder
No 5 – Josh Giddey: OKC Thunder
Not every week has definitive top five rookie performances and as such, I’ve used this fifth spot to pay homage to players who won’t typically be in this group (or end up there at season end). Such was the case last week with Alperen Sengun landing here.
I’ve also used it for one of the cemented top rookies who has an off week or is injured. Case in point, when Mobley got injured I kept him in the top five with the condition he would come off the ladder the following week if there were five strong performances. But of course, he returned the week after and was impactful.
Rookie category rankings:
- Assists: 5.8 – first
- Double-Doubles: three
- Rebounds: 7.2 – third
- Turnovers: 2.8 – third
- Offensive rebounds: 1.6 – fourth
- Blocks: 0.7 – tied fourth
- Steals: 1.0 – tied seventh
- Field Goals Made: 4.3 – seventh
- Minutes per game: 29.4 – seventh
- Points: 10.4 – eighth
- Field Goal Percent: 39.1%
- 3-point field goal percent: 25.7%
I was torn this week with regard to Josh Giddey who has performed well all season and even in poor shooting weeks he was delivering everywhere else (assists, rebounds, steals). In week seven he got the flu so played in just one of the three games scoring only two points on 1 of 9 from the field and had two turnovers.
Call it bias, or whatever you like but what saved him was the other ditties against Houston – seven assists, five rebounds, two blocks, and a steal. It’s likely he was already feeling the effects of the flu as well so I took that into consideration.
Chris Duarte was also an option as he returned to the starting rotations and through three games he averaged 13.3 points. Like the Thunder, Indy lost all three games but the main reason he didn’t knock off Giddey is he doesn’t impact the game across as many categories as Giddey does.