Why ending Rookie of the Year streak benefits Spurs, Dylan Harper

Looking again on it, Carter Bryant can pinpoint the actual second when Dylan Harper misplaced an award.

It occurred final June 25, just a little after 8:15 pm in New York. NBA commissioner Adam Silver made an announcement, Harper picked up a Spurs hat on his method to the stage, and a marketing campaign primarily ended earlier than it began.

“It’s as simple as, if he would’ve been drafted by 28 other teams, he’d be the Rookie of the Year,” Bryant mentioned of his San Antonio draft classmate. “Other than here and OKC, maybe? He’d be running away with it.”

Heading into the remaining three video games of the common season, Harper is not working away with it, of course. At some level in the subsequent month, the NBA will make one other announcement, and the Spurs’ streak of Rookie of the Year winners will finish at two, with Harper virtually actually ending behind the likes of Charlotte’s Kon Knueppel and Dallas’ Cooper Flagg and perhaps Philadelphia’s VJ Edgecombe in the voting.

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But here is the double-dose of upside: For the Spurs, the undeniable fact that Harper did not get the likelihood to build up the numbers wanted to win that award is certainly an excellent factor. And for Harper, it’d work out simply as effectively in the future.

“I know I kind of have a different goal in mind,” the 20-year-old level guard mentioned Monday night time.

To his immense credit score, Harper acknowledged the dynamics at play right here from the very starting. Last May, when one other lucky lottery-ball bounce landed the Spurs the No. 2 total choose in the 2025 draft, it grew to become clear that Harper was going to affix a San Antonio backcourt that already included De’Aaron Fox and Stephon Castle.

Rather than attempt to steer himself away from that vacation spot — a tactic that would not have been unthinkable — Harper and his household embraced the likelihood to affix an up-and-coming energy, even when it was all however assured he’d be relegated to a bench function for the foreseeable future.

To Bryant’s level, if Harper had ended up in Charlotte in Knueppel’s place, or in Philadelphia in Edgecomb’s spot, or in no less than two dozen different attainable touchdown spots, his numbers and his Rookie of the Year resume would look much more spectacular proper now.

“I could be somewhere else, and Dylan could be somewhere else, and we could be playing and getting a ton of bad reps and bad habits,” mentioned Bryant, who the Spurs took with the 14^th total choose final June. “The year would have progressed, and I look up and maybe I’m averaging 14 points, and Dylan’s averaging 20 to 25 points.

“But it wouldn’t be counting for anything, you know what I mean? We wouldn’t be learning how to win basketball games, and how to affect the game when you’re not scoring the ball.”

To be clear, Bryant’s claims about how Harper’s stat line would look with another franchise aren’t merely the wild speculation of a 19-year-old. Any look beyond the basic numbers shows that Harper’s overall production has been just as impressive as the top Rookie of the Year contenders.

For instance, on a per-36 minute basis, Harper’s averages of 18.9 points and 5.4 rebounds compare favorably with Knueppel (21.4 and 6.1), Flagg (22.4 and 7.0) and Edgecombe (16.5 and 5.7).

But beyond that, Harper’s assist-to-turnover ratio of 2.74 blows the other three away, and his net points per 100 possessions (according to ESPN Analytics) trails only Knueppel among rookies.

It’s easy to imagine a scenario in which Harper was asked to play a more dominant role — as both Victor Wembanyama and Castle did during their rookie seasons, and as both Knueppel and Flagg have done — and prevailed in the voting.

“If he had those opportunities,” Castle mentioned, “it would be no question he’d be it (the Rookie of the Year).”

But that is not what the Spurs wanted from him. In Wembanyama, Castle and Fox, they have been already loaded with stars to function the point of interest of the offense.

What they requested of Harper, arguably, was much more difficult. They wanted a super-talented man to determine learn how to thrive at each ends of the courtroom alongside all of these three older stars, they usually wanted him to do that whereas being OK with letting his teammates get the shine.

“That’s a hard thing for someone who’s basically been a superstar his whole life,” Fox mentioned.

“Not once have I felt him not want to (embrace a supporting role),” Spurs coach Mitch Johnson mentioned. “I’m sure he has, because he’s human. But it’s nice to see him get rewarded for putting the team first.”

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His rewards, clearly, will likely be completely different than Knueppel’s or Flagg’s will.

Harper, whose March Madness-less season at Rutgers nonetheless makes him the good-natured goal of ridicule amongst the Connecticut, Kentucky, Duke and North Carolina alumni in the Spurs’ locker room, ought to get loads of postseason expertise over the subsequent month.

And past that? Having cemented himself as an integral half of the Spurs’ long-term future, Harper is aware of precisely how he suits. In that regard, the Rookie of the Year voting is irrelevant.

“Just not comparing myself to anyone, and just kind of running my own race,” Harper mentioned. “We’re all in different situations. I’m blessed being in this one.”