2020 NBA Awards Season

The Final 2020 NBA Rookie of the Year Ladder

Let’s count down the top 10 NBA rookies. Did Ja Morant hold off Zion Williamson for Rookie of the Year, and who else stood out?

WAS JA MORANT OR ZION WILLIAMSON THE BEST ROOKIE IN THE NBA THIS SEASON? That depends on what question you’re really asking. Which player was more valuable to their NBA team? Which player was better when on the court? Which of them will one day be the better player?

The fun part about awards is that there are no set-in-stone criteria. If there were, columns like these would be pointless. We’d just throw all the names and numbers into the big MVP cruncher computer, press go, and spit out the results. But that’s not real life. These races are subjective, and the more post-All-Star-break basketball we got, the more Zion vs Ja became a real question. It would only have amplified over the game’s final six weeks.

A whopping 115 rookies debuted this season, even without the final 18 games robbed by Coronavirus. Yesterday we looked at 10 high-profile rookies that were somewhat disappointing this season. Today we’ll count down the top 10 with this year’s final Rookie Ladder, choosing First and Second-Team All-Rookie in the process and declaring a Rookie of the Year winner.