This will be a continuation of the way too early 2022-2023 NBA award predictions. Which rookies will make the All-Rookie teams? Who will be the Rookie of the Year? Who’s making the all-defensive teams? This article will answer these questions. This is the Early 2022-2023 NBA Award predictions pt. 2.
Yes, Chet Holmgren is not on this list. That is solely based on the fact that Oklahoma City is going to be actively tanking this season. In order to do this, Holmgren will probably be missing a ton of games. That’s exactly what happened to Josh Giddey, as he was looking like one of the best players coming out of last year’s draft. However, he made the second team due to missing 28 games his rookie year. Other than that, these will be the all-rookie first-teamers for this year. All players mentioned are going to be given so much freedom during the season, so hopefully, they live up to their potential come day one. It’s going to be tough to predict the Rookie of the Year, but it’s going to be so much fun watching these guys dominate the league.
This list was extremely hard to think about. This draft class is really deep, so choosing the right players was difficult. With that being said, these players made the cut. Chet Holmgren will more than likely deal with the tank monster this season, so that’s why he ends up on the second team. The others on this list have shown that they should not have been drafted so late. Eason, Sochan, Williams, and Branham were all drafted to the perfect situations and will be given every opportunity to succeed. Expect all of these players to have some of the better rookie campaigns this year.
This one was another difficult choice to make. Murray, however, gets the edge for Rookie of the Year due to how dominant he was in college and the Summer League. Not only that, but he is also in a perfect situation in terms of production. He will be starting for the Kings this year and the guy just has all the tools to make an immediate impact. Murray had some nasty Summer League averages: 21.7 points, 7.4 boards, 1.4 dimes, 1.3 steals, 0.4 blocks, and 2.6 turnovers a game on 51% from the field, 41% from three and 84% from the field. If he can replicate these averages in the big leagues, then who knows what Murray’s ceiling is. The Kings may have gotten a lot of flak from drafting him over Ivey, but it’s looking like the right decision.
The next article will go over the All-NBA First team, Second Team and more. Stay tuned for the next one!
