From the Kings: Rally For Reke Night on March 10th
Unfortunately in today’s NBA, marketing means as much to winning awards as actual play on the basketball court. Last year, Kevin Love had his own “glass cleaner” infomercial in order to get some Rookie of the Year recognition. Amare Stoudemire is teaming up with David Spade in order to garner some All-Star votes. And the Bucks are going to have to do some serious marketing to get Andrew Bogut on one of the All-Defensive teams even though he’s been one of the best deterrents in the middle this year.
With that said, the fervor for guys like Stephen Curry, Brandon Jennings and Darren Collison is growing as they put up amazing stats on bad teams (Curry) and good stats on teams with playoff hopes (Jennings and Collison). For some reason, what gets lost in the entire run-around of figuring out the Rookie of the Year award is that Tyreke Evans has been this good and a force of nature in the NBA at a historical pace ALL SEASON LONG. Tyreke Evans has been the best rookie for the entire campaign.
Jennings was hot early as he battled Tyreke for top rookie honors in the first month. Since January, Stephen Curry has been on fire and trying to wrestle away the honor of being the top rookie from Tyreke Evans. And since Chris Paul went down, Darren Collison has tried to do the same thing – take away ROY from Tyreke Evans. While all of the rookies I just mentioned have been great in their own way at different points of the season here’s the underlying point that everyone outside of Sacramento seems to be missing…
TYREKE EVANS HAS BEEN THERE ALL FREAKING SEASON!!!!
Because of this incomprehensible confusion around the NBA, the Kings need to get in on this action of pumping up their own guy so that people don’t forget who has been doing this rookie thing better than everybody else.
So at the Raptors game on March 10th, they’re holding a rally to remind people that Tyreke Evans is the only choice for Rookie of the Year.
As Sacramento rallies to show its support for Tyreke Evans for Rookie of the Year on March 10, 13 lucky Kings fans will win two lower level tickets to the ‘Rally for RekeROY’ game, a Cache Creek ‘Rally for RekeROY’ T-shirt autographed by Evans and the opportunity to ‘win the spotlight on court’ during the spectacular pregame special effects show.
Fans can enter to win the ‘Rally for RekeROY’ contest by texting the word “Rally” to 69866 or visiting StandwithTyreke.com by noon on Tuesday, March 9.
When the Kings have celebrated certain things at games this year (Veterans, Tyreke’s Rookie of the Month awards, etc.) it’s been a very well done celebration with great video work on the boards and great presentations on the court. I would assume with making this about a celebration of the historical rookie season that Tyreke Evans is attempting the Kings will pull out all of the stops in making this a fun night.
Great post Zach,
Three things that i find unrealized by most i talk to on DDL and espn conversation boards. First is how people knock on Evans for having no jumper(people call Kobe and Melo great shooters but they have a lower fg%). Which is true but makes the fact that he is first in rookie scoring and second among rookies, 1st among rookie wing players in fg% (qualified). One would think with no J one wouldn’t be as efficient offensively and be easier to stop, but he isn’t. That shows his dominance on the offensive end, and once he works on his jumper he will be unable to be guarded. Second is how people think and assume he can’t/doesn,t pass. Yet he is second among rookies in assists, and in my opinion would be 1st if he had a center like Bogut all season. Finally is the lack of the realization of the solid D Tyreke can play. I say can because lately it hasn’t really been there consistently. If one really looks at it Curry has had 1 better month all season which was January, and it wasn’t that much better. Tyreke had a bum ankle and bruised hip that month, sounds like an excuse but it really effected his game. As far as February goes every one mentions Collison’s 21.6ppg 3.9 reb 8.3 ast on % of .496, but they always leave out the 5 to’s he averaged. Tyreke’s February was just as impressive but garners no recognition, 20.1ppg 5.8 reb 7 ast on a % of .505 and 3to’s. Honestly, the only thing i think that may hold Evans back from the ROY honors is popularity and hype, which is sad since Evans has been playing at an All-Star level all season long not just the last 20-25 games. If the players were to pick the ROY i think it would be Evans hands down, but Curry and Collison seem way more media popular.I mean i’ve been reading on several Basketball sites about how Curry and Collison are going to be better players and that they are the ROY favorite. I mean i don’t see it , but maybe im blinded by homerism. Besides the MVP race this is the one should be the 2nd biggest lock already. Wish i could attend Rally for ‘Reke ROY, too bad i live in Laker land, best i get these days is to watch them play the Lakers and Clippers on FSW. GO KINGS! Maybe i’ll start a campaign down here.