ESPN Insider

Does anyone here have ESPN Insider script? They have a top 50 rookies list. I'm interested in seeing where they rank Shump. Also interested in their top 10. Thanks in advance...
 

M-boogie

Rookie
1. Kyrie Irving
2. Kenneth Fields
3. Chandler Parsons
4. Kawhi Leonard
5. Isaiah Thomas
6. Klay Thompson
7. Kemba Walker
8. Derrick Williams
9. Gustavo Ayon
10. Tristan Thompson
11. Iman Shumpert
 
Irving I get being #1. Rubio OK, he's up there. But no way in the world Shump shouldnt be top 5. The Knicks are probably asking him to do more than any other rookie on that list.

BS...
 

tiger0330

Legend
11-20

Iman Shumpert
Brandon Knight
Ricky Rubio
Bismack Biyombo
Alec Burks
Marshon Brooks
Markieff Morris
Greg Stiesma
Enes Kanter
Nikola Vucevic

Stein Article on Lin

Fifty-seven days.

That's as long as it lasted.

Fifty-seven days is the extent of how long it took for Linsanity to launch, peak and crater to the point that the dead-serious word came last weekend, on April Fools' Day eve, that the darling of an NBA season that almost didn't happen would suddenly need knee surgery.

Chances are you've moved on to something else by now -- presumably that voice inside your head asking whether Dwight Howard has really managed to surpass LeBron James as the league's most villainous superstar -- but I'm not ready. Jeremy Lin's 57-day slice of basketball history, from the night he announced himself to the world on Feb. 4 by outdueling Deron Williams to the sad bulletin that landed him in a hospital bed, is worthy of at least one more detailed rewind before the playoffs completely commandeer our focus.

So here goes ?


The trend

If there's been a better season for undrafted players than this 66-gamer spawned (barely) by an ugly five-month lockout, I can't remember it.

Very early on, Detroit's Ben Wallace played in his 1,055th regular-season game, nudging the four-time All-Star and four-time defensive player of the year past Avery Johnson's record for undrafted players since the NBA's 1976-77 merger with the ABA.

Then Mexican center Gustavo Ayon finally made it to the NBA at age 27. Signing a three-year deal with the Hornets in December after funding most of a $1.5 million buyout clause with Spanish club Baloncesto Fuenlabrada on his own -- and forfeiting more lucrative deals to stay in the Spanish League -- Ayon took advantage of New Orleans' slew of frontcourt injuries to become one of the Hornets pursued by other teams at the trade deadline. But why would they move him? Better to keep Ayon and see what he might become after the 6-foot-10, 250-pounder pulled down 17 boards in a February win in Cleveland, putting him alongside Michael Stewart (19 boards for Sacramento in 1998), Reggie Evans (17 for Seattle in 2002) and Udonis Haslem (17 for Miami in 2004) as one of just four undrafted rookies to have a rebounding game that big over the past 50 years, according to the Elias Sports Bureau.

Then in March, if it wasn't li'l John Lucas III leading the Derrick Rose-less Bulls to wins over Miami (home) and Orlando (road) with a combined 44 points in 48 minutes, it was my former Cal State Fullerton classmate and current ESPN colleague Bruce Bowen having his No. 12 retired by the San Antonio Spurs, thanks to Bowen's role as a starter and stopper on three Spurs title teams in eight seasons.

And then there's Lin.

After what he's done with the Knicks, without warning, after a rough rookie season with his hometown Golden State Warriors in which he made it into only 29 games and shot 39 percent from the floor?

Captain of Team Undrafted.




The highlight


Snagging Sports Illustrated covers on consecutive weeks, something only nine other athletes have ever done, is unreservedly epic.

nba_a_lin12_203.jpg
AP Photo/Frank Franklin II



The high point of Lin's fairy-tale rise to global fame, however, has to be something that happened on the floor.

And nothing tops Lakers at Knicks on Feb. 10.

In his third start and fourth game as the Knicks' new go-to guy -- with Amare Stoudemire and Carmelo Anthony injured, and Lin's bosses grateful they didn't go through with their original plans to waive the 23-year-old to prevent his $762,195 contract from becoming guaranteed for the rest of the season -- Lin squared off with Kobe Bryant in an ESPN Friday night showdown. Even crazier: Lin rose to the occasion like no one would have dared to dream and won the duel in one of Kobe's favorite buildings, lighting up Madison Square Garden for a whopping 38 points that changed his life forever.




The comparison


What Lin did statistically in his first 11 games of prominence, averaging 24 points on 53 percent shooting while driving New York to nine wins in that span, was actually not as thoroughly unprecedented as we were initially led to believe.

The reality is that Ronald "Flip" Murray, who never scored more than six points in a game in his 14 appearances as a rookie, began the 2003-04 campaign in Seattle as an emergency starter for the injured Ray Allen and promptly averaged 21.8 points in the Sonics' first 13 games.

Flip Murray, though, was never going to make the sort of cultural (and international) splash that Lin could as an Asian-American with Taiwanese parents who matriculated to the NBA from an unlikely training ground: Harvard (see Box 2). Ditto for another Pacific Northwesterner whose turn in the spotlight didn't even last as long as Murray's: Billy Ray Bates and his own arrival from oblivion to improbably spark a sub-.500 Portland team into the postseason in 1980.

The wave of interest in Lin's story was far more reminiscent of Fernandomania in 1981, when rookie Los Angeles Dodgers left-hander Fernando Valenzuela made an emergency start for the ailing Jerry Reuss on Opening Day and became an instant All-Star. The truth is that Valenzuela's story is in a different stratosphere stats-wise -- given that he started 8-0 and ultimately won both rookie of the year and Cy Young Award honors for a team that went on to win the World Series -- but it's the icon status Valenzuela quickly achieved with the Dodgers' huge Latino fan base that established the blueprint for Lin's tale to become a bigger-than-sports story.




The statistic


At the height of Linsanity, shocking numbers were a daily treat, with a fresh batch of gaudy stats circulating for dissection seemingly every day until the 2-8 skid that cost Mike D'Antoni his job after Carmelo Anthony returned Feb. 20 from a groin injury.

nba_g_jlints6_203.jpg
Ron Turenne/Getty Images



The Elias Sports Bureau would inform us, for example, that Lin's 238 points and 94 assists in his first 10 starts were better than Derrick Rose (189 points and 56 dimes), John Stockton (98 and 91), Isiah Thomas (212 and 69) and Magic Johnson (194 and 71).

The same Lin who, before his Feb. 4 eruption off the bench against the Nets, had never scored more than 13 points in an NBA game.

The Bovada bookmakers in Las Vegas, meanwhile, would send out multiple notices in February including Lin on their list of MVP candidates. (Found one in my files that lists Lin as a 50-1 shot, tied with Blake Griffin and Dirk Nowitzki, and next in line behind Dwyane Wade at 35-1.)

Yet there's one standout number that, to me, didn't get nearly enough play amid the constant chatter about whether Lin -- as Steve Nash heard for so long before him -- needed D'Antoni's system to thrive.

Lin's crunch-time efficiency rating, namely.

At the time he was shut down -- presumably for the rest of this season unless there's a longer-than-expected playoff run in the Knicks' future that would give the meniscal tear in his left knee sufficient time to heal -- Lin's PER in fourth quarters was a whopping 33.5. Without trying to get too Hollinger-esque on you, bear in mind that such a reading left Lin behind only the Clippers' Chris Paul (37.2) in the league when this week began ? and ahead of the likes of Derrick Rose (32.9), Kyrie Irving (32.2), LeBron James (30.7) and Kevin Durant (29.4).




The future


Let's first dispel the notion that the sudden spike in Lin's minutes and role, after barely playing in the first month-plus of the season, doomed him to this knee injury. As one NBA medical expert reminded us this week, tendinitis and stress fractures are the classic injuries associated with overuse. The greater likelihood is that this injury, in a compacted season full of them, just happened.

Nor will the injury or Lin's mere mortal production after Woodson replaced D'Antoni (averages of 13.3 points and 5.3 assists over a seven-game span) make him any less of a free-agent commodity this summer. A quickie survey Thursday night of nearly a third of the league's 30 teams confirmed what we all suspected: The combination of Lin's talent and marketability, heading into a summer with few top unrestricted free agents and several clubs with cap space, has won him a lot of fans in front offices.

Yet pretty much every team I've asked is convinced that Lin is a lock to be re-signed by the Knicks. Looks like the only way it wouldn't happen is if Steve Nash tells the Knicks he's willing to join them for the mid-level exception, which New York has to save for Lin if it wants to take advantage of the Gilbert Arenas rule that prevents rival teams from offering more than the mid-level exception to restricted free agents with fewer than three seasons of service time.

The Knicks simply don't have the means to sign both Lin and Nash in the offseason. But one source close to the situation told ESPN.com that the Knicks are routinely besieged with offers (lucrative offers, naturally) from potential sponsors that want to be involved with Lin. Package those opportunities with Lin's size, athleticism and untapped potential -- along with an unmistakable fearlessness in the big moment that resonates as much as anything he showed us in those 57 days -- and the widespread pessimism about signing him away from the Knicks is understandable.

"They won't let him leave," said the aforementioned source.
 

MSGhobo247

Rotation player
Just a list some guy made up in his office. Shump will have a better career then 90% of the ppl on it.

large_Shump_LearningOnTheFly_660.jpg
 
Top