The NBA announced on Monday that 76ers point guard Michael Carter-Williams won the Rookie of the Year award. He averaged 16.7 points per game and won the award easily with 104 first place votes (out of 124). The bigger news here of course, is that Gorgui Dieng finished 6th in the voting! Considering he really didn’t start to get meaningful minutes until the middle of March, that is pretty incredible.
Total points for votes in ( )
1. Michael Carter-Williams – Phi (569)
2. Victor Oladipo – Orl (364)
3. Trey Burke – Utah (96)
4. Mason Plumlee – Bkn (58)
5. Tim Hardaway Jr. – NY (23)
6. Gorgui Dieng – Min (3)
7. Steven Adams – OKC (1)
8. Giannis Antetokounmpo – Mil (1)
9. Nick Calathes – Mem (1)
He finished the season averaging 4.8 points and 5 rebounds per game, but his impact was much bigger than that when he finally started to play consistently. For the month of March, he averaged 8.6 points and 8.3 rebounds per game. That includes 6 games where he played a total of 14 minutes, which couldn’t help those averages at all. March also saw Gorgui have a game with 22 points and 21 rebounds against the Rockets, as well as a game with 15 points and 15 rebounds against the Hawks.
In April, Dieng averaged 11.9 points and 10.7 rebounds per game. He had another 20 rebound game against the Rockets that month. Dwight who? Check out how his minutes increased in each month: November (5.9 mpg), December (5.0 mpg), January (6.1 mpg), February (9.4 mpg), March (20.7 mpg), April (31.1 mpg).
Congratulations to Gorgui on a very successful season. With the way he finished the last couple months, it looks like he could find himself in the league for a long time.
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