Newton High School alum Stephon Castle has made no secret about it: He wanted to be rookie of the year.<\/p>\n
And he got it done \u2014 by a wide margin.<\/p>\n
The San Antonio Spurs now have back-to-back winners of the award, with Victor Wembanyama last year and Castle this season. Castle was the fifth rookie in Spurs history to score more than 1,000 points.<\/p>\n
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It was one-sided in the voting. Castle got 92 first-place votes, easily topping runner-up Zaccharie Risacher of the Atlanta Hawks and third-place finisher Jaylen Wells of the Memphis Grizzlies. Risacher got five first-place votes, Wells got the other three.<\/p>\n
\u201cComing in with all the confidence that I had in myself as a player, that was definitely a goal of mine from Day 1,\u201d Castle said on TNT, which broadcast the unveiling of the results. \u201cI\u2019m just happy I was able to execute it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Castle\u2019s win marked the second time in more than a half-century that one franchise went back-to-back with the top-rookie honor. Minnesota\u2019s Andrew Wiggins (now of Miami) and Karl-Anthony Towns (now of New York) were voted rookies of the year in 2015 and 2016, respectively.<\/p>\n
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The last instance of a team going back-to-back before that: 1973 and 1974, when Bob McAdoo and Ernie DiGregorio pulled it off for the Buffalo Braves.<\/p>\n
\u201cI get so excited watching him play,\u201d said Chris Paul, Castle\u2019s backcourt mate this season in San Antonio. \u201cThe first thing that I want to see in a teammate or anybody is how competitive they are. That\u2019ll take you further than talent any day. And I saw immediately was that he was competitive. I was like, \u2018OK, cool. This is going to be easy.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Castle led all rookies this season in points (1,190) and steals (74). Risacher finished strong, winning Eastern Conference rookie of the month for both February and March. Wells led all rookies in games started (74) and 3-pointers made (138, matching the total posted by Washington\u2019s Bub Carrington).<\/p>\n
Risacher \u2014 who hails from France, like Wembanyama \u2014 was looking to give the NBA the first instance of international players winning the award in consecutive years since Australia\u2019s Ben Simmons and Slovenia\u2019s Luka Doncic in 2018 and 2019. Wells was bidding to be Memphis\u2019 first rookie of the year since Ja Morant in 2020.<\/p>\n
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The rookie of the year award was voted on by a global panel of 100 writers and broadcasters who cover the league and cast ballots shortly after the end of the regular season.<\/p>\n
Washington\u2019s Alex Sarr was fourth in the voting, followed by Memphis\u2019 Zach Edey in fifth and Miami\u2019s Kel\u2019el Ware in sixth. Philadelphia\u2019s Jared McCain \u2014 who was off to a great start before getting hurt \u2014 and Chicago\u2019s Matas Buzelis finished tied for seventh in the voting.<\/p>\n
The other awards that were part of that voting process and have already had their results unveiled: Cleveland\u2019s Evan Mobley winning defensive player of the year, New York\u2019s Jalen Brunson winning clutch player of the year, and Boston\u2019s Payton Pritchard winning sixth man of the year.<\/p>\n
On Wednesday, the most improved player \u2014 Cade Cunningham of Detroit, Dyson Daniels of Atlanta, or Ivica Zubac of the Los Angeles Clippers \u2014 will be announced, also at 7 p.m. EDT on TNT.<\/p>\n
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Other awards announced by the league since the end of the regular season: Golden State\u2019s Stephen Curry the Twyman-Stokes teammate of the year award and Warriors teammate Draymond Green won the hustle award.<\/p>\n
Castle grew up in Covington and went on to play basketball for UConn during his junior year over offers from Auburn, Arkansas, Georgia, Georgia Tech and Ohio State. By the end of his senior year Castle had been re-rated as a five-star recruit.<\/p>\n
The Associated Press contributed to this article. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Newton High School alum Stephon Castle has made no secret about it: He wanted to be rookie of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4317,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[979,500,208,7,2643,45,2644,909,919,2596,305,296,200,206,576,479,532,178,288,1255,2597,563,981,135,368,973,177,295,307,6,2642,405,678,969,474,573,930,693,1246,1083],"class_list":{"0":"post-4316","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-alex-sarr","9":"tag-andrew-wiggins","10":"tag-atlanta-hawks","11":"tag-basketball","12":"tag-ben-simmons","13":"tag-boston","14":"tag-bub-carrington","15":"tag-cade-cunningham","16":"tag-chicago","17":"tag-chris-paul","18":"tag-cleveland","19":"tag-detroit","20":"tag-draymond-green","21":"tag-dyson-daniels","22":"tag-evan-mobley","23":"tag-golden-state","24":"tag-ivica-zubac","25":"tag-ja-morant","26":"tag-jalen-brunson","27":"tag-jared-mccain","28":"tag-jaylen-wells","29":"tag-karl-anthony-towns","30":"tag-kelel-ware","31":"tag-los-angeles-clippers","32":"tag-luka-doncic","33":"tag-matas-buzelis","34":"tag-memphis-grizzlies","35":"tag-miami","36":"tag-minnesota","37":"tag-nba","38":"tag-newton-high-school","39":"tag-payton-pritchard","40":"tag-philadelphia","41":"tag-san-antonio","42":"tag-san-antonio-spurs","43":"tag-stephen-curry","44":"tag-stephon-castle","45":"tag-victor-wembanyama","46":"tag-zaccharie-risacher","47":"tag-zach-edey"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4316","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4316"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4316\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4317"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4316"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4316"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4316"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}