Kendrick Nunn Claims ROTY Award

NBA: Kendrick Nunn Mistakenly Makes the Case for “Rookie of
the Year”
Miami, FL – The NBA season has been suspended for a month now, as we continue to endure this
pandemic, forcing everyone to stay trapped in their homes. Cabin fever is real, and everyone has been
experiencing it to some degree. But nobody has lost their mind more than Miami Heat guard Kendrick
Nunn. Today, in a shocking announcement on twitter, the rookie displayed symptoms of temporaryinsanity
by posting a claim that he deserves serious consideration for the esteemed ROTY award. His
main argument is that his team was better, a playoff contender, and his performance was just as good as
current front-runner Ja Morant, point guard for the Grizzlies. Let me tell ya folks, he is just like the rest of
us. Stuck at home, missing sports, and losing his mind.
In his defense, in order to reach the elite level of basketball required to make the NBA, you have to be
soaked in self-confidence. You can’t be given the ball with one second on the clock and be thinking, “Aw
man, I’m not gonna make this. I’m a piece of garbage. I should’ve been a lawyer or a doctor.” You have
to believe that you are a gift from God, presented to the earth as a superhero, who’s power is putting a
ball into a 18-inch circle. But with this self-confidence, you can still maintain a sense of rationality and
judgement. When Kendrick Nunn claimed he had any sort of claim to the Rookie of The Year award, he
demonstrated a temporary lapse of those two traits. He had a fine season, but when Ja Morant exists, his
season just doesn’t even come close.
For the season played thus far, Nunn put up 15.6 ppg (points per game), 2.7 rbg (rebounds per game), and
3.4 apg (assists per game). This is a great statline for any nba player, especially a rookie. He shot 45%
from the field on 13.7 attempts per game, and 36% from the 3pt line on 5.8 attempts, both numbers put
him in the top 40% of all players in the league. While these numbers appear to be pretty special, let’s
compare them to Ja’s numbers, shall we?
Ja, during the same span of time had stat line of 17.6 ppg, 3.5 rpg, and 6.9 apg, all while playing the same
position. Do you think that Ja had those numbers because he had the ball more? Or because Ja played so
many more minutes? Well guess what, Ja had a usage rate (basically how many possessions the player
was involved in) of 25.8, while Nunn was barely behind him at 23.3. Now, in terms of minutes per game,
Ja did in fact have an enormous advantage over Nunn, as Ja played 30 mpg while Nunn only played a
meager 29.8 mpg.
Both players are point guards, so another primary role of theirs is ball distribution, and creating
opportunities for their teammates. It can be argued that Nunn wasn’t a primary ball handler since he was
on the court with Jimmy Butler, but his passing compared to Ja is still frustratingly stagnant. Ja assisted
on 34.3% of his team’s total points while on the floor, and Nunn assisted on 18.2% of his team’s points,
and as I said before, both players had essentially the same usage rate. So, with the ball in their hands an
equal amount, Ja created double the amount of scoring opportunities for teammates, while still managing
to score more points, and grab more rebounds.
“But Britt, he was having a better season before he was injured. After the injury, his stats went down.
Surely before the injury he was on pace to win the award!” Well, just for you, I went through and
crunched the numbers of the two players in the 44 games played before Nunn’s injury in late-January. It
took me like, an hour to put these together, and I did it by HAND, and for free. Both of which were
equally painful.
So, in 44 games before the alleged injury that ruined the Heat guard’s season, he was averaging 16.2 ppg,
2.8 apg, and 3.7 rpg. These stats are in fact much improved over his season stats as a whole, proving that
the injury did play a role in his diminished final statline. But once again, Grizzlies guard Ja Morant, was

still a lethal weapon during the same span. Morant was averaging 17.3 ppg, 3.5 rpg, and 7.0 apg through
the same 44 game span. Injruy or not, Morant had a markedly better season, while having the same
number of possessions as Nunn, and playing the same number of minutes.
The assist numbers are especially shocking, considering Nunn had much better talent around him. He had
3 players on the floor with him that were involved in All-Star weekend (Jimmy, Duncan Robinson, and
Bam Adebayo) that he could be passing to. Morant, also a point guard, had exactly ZERO All-Star caliber
players to pass to. And he still managed to surpass Nunn is not only total assists per game, but % of teams
points he assisted on. Nunn was correct in claiming that his team was performing at a higher level, but it
wasn’t because of his performance, it was actually in spite of his reluctance to utilize his coworkers
talents and abilities.
In conclusion, I’m not claiming that Nunn isn’t an electric player for the Miami Heat, or that he isn’t a
future star in The Association, because it is clear that he is both. But he has no right to make a case for
ROTY honors over Grizzlies guard Ja Morant in any way-shape-or form. Clearly, he is missing sports
like the rest of us, but making outrageous claims such as this is just unacceptable on any level. And Ja
Morant will easily take home the award, because every possible statistic proves that he is the more
deserving player. Enjoy the rest of your quarantine, and be warned that when the season returns, both
players will continue their phenomenal seasons, but Morant will be better. It’s a fact.