There should be no debate: Ben Simmons is the Rookie of the Year

So did the jazz magically change conference when gobert was healthy and the team went 36-19 in that span? 12-15 without him....huge drop off. Man I hear you about that December schedule but we can't deal with what ifs, just the records and numbers. That drop off is just way too big. Can't say mitchell really led anything undrr those cicumstances. Hence why the conference argument is weak here. Simmons can only play what's in front of him as well Also not mentioned in the article is Simmons is 5th in the league in secondary hockey assists and his 17.1 potential assists is way ahead of Mitchell's 6.8. Or just the eye test is enough to see he is light years ahead as a playmaker. Mitchell is a better shooter but factor in just about every other facet of the game and it isn't really close overall.

So much wrong with everything you wrote. no surprises that nobody is able to defend the jazzz being 12-15 without gobert. The western conference argument is weak; they were 36-19 with gobert playing in the SAME CONFERENCE. Absolutely no chance Mitchell is the best player on the team when they struggled that Much without Rudy. Just factually incorrect. and this dude is talking about playoffs when the entire article was written about a regular season award. Facepalm.

Are you Karl Malone's son? JSSATMTIHNI

My comments were that I disagreed with your disingenuous insinuation that only a verbal explicit quote would be reasonable communication that Mitchell didn’t believe Simmons wasn’t a rookie. The point was he knowingly communicated he didn’t believe Simmons should qualify as a rookie. You’ve admitted he did so I’m fine. You can use the metaphorical mic as a phallic erogenous toy or some man-child conch or whatever pleases you as you attempt to reframe the argument to cover up the fact that – boy, you were wrong Yes simmons was classless in his comments, was never the point. Yes Mitchell has grabbed some kardashian-esque media attention... was nevert the point

If you don't rate Gobert you don't know basketball

a) I don't believe I ever said I would vote for Mitchell over Simmons. What I said is the author was wrong to say there was no debate to be had. The number of comments on this post show that was a dumb comment! b) "You can’t say the East was a ‘joke’ and the Jazz had a tougher time in the West." Actually I can, and I will! c) East was a ‘joke’ and the Jazz had a tougher time in the West! When compared to the 76ers and the run that Simmons had without Embiid especially! I think you will find that of the teams Ben played in the run that proved his offense was fine without Embiid, I think you will find nearly all of the teams were in the bottom half of the league for Defensive Rating! Compare that to Mitchell's run without Gobert that included the toughest month schedule any team had (I believe, if not the toughest, one of the toughest): https://www.deseretnews.com/article/865693594/Utah-Jazz-face-toughest-NBA-schedule-for-month-of-December-in-good-spirits.html Also, your quote (from Zach in point 2) was a great one..... ... When taken in full context! Here is the quote with the Paragraph before it: "Welp. We have a legitimate five-team race for the last three Western Conference playoff spots, and if any of the three teams hanging above that tier -- San Antonio, Minnesota, Oklahoma City -- gets sloppy or suffers a long-term injury, things could get nuts. Utah has the easiest remaining schedule among all those teams based on current opponent winning percentage." So he wasn't saying the Jazz had the easiest schedule in the league, he was saying they had that compared to the other ridiculously difficult schedules that the teams competing for a playoff spot in the west had (mainly as they were playing other Western conference power houses and not the league dregs commonly known as Eastern Conference teams)! So while I love your use of supporting arguments, please make sure they actually. ... SUPPORT YOUR ARGUMENT! But your other comments about stats that I said about Mitchell effecting SImmons is 100% right and I would argue why stats are a horrible way to judge who had a better year. Stats can be used to tell you anything you want! 99% of people know that! On your point 4, you are in violent agreement with Mitchell and Adidas on the rules! Its what makes his trolling of the media and public with the shirt, hoodie and van so brilliant a marketing tool! JMTC

Agree with you and mushi and others, that there is definitely a debate to be had around Mitchell vs Simmons, although I would have voted for Simmons (which BTW, so to did the majority of voters - Simmons received 90 first placed votes to Mitchell's 11...So, your initial point about this issue having anything to do with The Roar being an Aussie site, is moot) But I'd argue against a few points you've made in this post and others earlier... 1. You can't throw away assist comparison. If so, then throw away scoring comparisons, because Simmons primary role is not as a scorer. Besides, if you consider points and assists, the two are actually very similar (Mitchell just ahead)...ESPN's Kevin Pelton has a 'combined usage' stat that captures this, and proves the two are close (and both historically good for rookies). 2. You can't say that there are parts of Mitchell's "offensive game that don’t tell the true story in the box scores" and not say the same for Simmons. Somehow in this debate, Simmons' offense has become really under-valued. Mitchell’s raw scoring numbers outweigh those of Simmons and Mitchell deserves credit for carrying the Jazz offense, but his effective field goal percentage is 3.9 points behind that of Simmons, making Simmons is the more efficient scorer...not something that is regularly mentioned in box scores (or as a counter-argument to Micthell's higher scoring average) 2. You can't say the East was a 'joke' and the Jazz had a tougher time in the West. Yes of course, the West is better than the East overall, but that doesn't account for individual team schedules. This from Zach Lowe in Feb: "Utah has the easiest remaining schedule among teams based on current opponent winning percentage. Fifteen of their remaining 25 games are at home. They have the head-to-head tiebreaker edge over New Orleans, Portland and the Clippers going into their final matchups against all three. (They have already split four games against Denver.) The nerds at 538 give Utah a 90 percent chance to make the playoffs, best among this five-team crew." 3. You can't base your argument on ROY on just stats from 'post all-star break', as you seem to have done. Firstly, the award is given for performance across the year, not the second half. And secondly, this year, the all-start break was late...They played around 57 games before the break and only 25 after, so those numbers are skewed 4. By NBA rules, Simmons is a rookie. That is where this discussion ends. I don't care what T-Shirt Mitchell wears or why, or that he's been in the league for a season and a half. It's irrelevant. The rules are very clear.

The carrying the offensive load comment is a good one. The idea that Gobert isn't a very dangerous offensive player is a silly one. a) The dunk is the most effective shot in basketball. If teams could get a dunk on every play, they would. b) Rudy is a beast on the roll to the basket. If you don't cover him he is dunking everytime c) Rudy is one of the best screeners in the game. Add that to his aggressive rolling, it provides lots of easy shots for his team mate that lose their opponent on the screen and don't have a big waiting as they have to cover Rudy d) It is true that he is just learning that he can pin smaller guys at the basket but I think his team mates are just learning how to get it to him in those situations. I don't want him to try to learn a post up game but he has to continue to work on pinning the small guys at the basket and his team mates have to get better at getting him the ball. It will be interesting if that is one of the things that happens with Mitch and Rubio playing there second years with him and overall basically the same team coming back for the Jazz.

Mitchell is no doubt the best player on the Jazz, Gobert is a defensive beast but he couldn't post up on Isaiah Thomas. Simmons has no jumper and that means the defense can exploit that as we saw in the Philly v Boston game. Mitchell has to be picked up beyond the perimeter and he has the capabilities to be a great passer but due to the Jazz and their lack of shot-creators, he has to create for himself an carry that load offensively

Haha! You're kidding right? Or you have no clue! He is the first rookie since ...Shaq? I can't remember the player but it isn't recent, to lead his team in scoring while making the playoffs! As stated earlier, assist comparison is silly because the Jazz are a high pass offense that means no player on the team, even proven assist player Ricky Rubio, dropped about 4 assists a game! If you look at post all-star game stats (when Mitchell was in a stretch of death playoff race in a western conference that had 10 odd teams that hardly lost apart from against each other racing for 4-8 in the playoff picture, and while Ben was in the joke that is the Eastern Conference) Mitchell had more steals and more points (22pts a game). Why post all-star game? Because that meant Mitchell had been in the NBA for about half a season compared to Simmons that had been in the league for 1 and half seasons! Also the only player after the all-star break that the jazz were negative net rating with them on the bench was Mitchell (-2.6) compared to +15.2 when he was on the court. 76ers were still positive rating with SImmons on the bench and not as positive with Simmons on the floor, again, predominantly against the joke of an Eastern Conference!

Mitchell didn't lead anything . It literally says above in the article the jazz were a paltry 12-15 when gobert was out, did you not read it? He is behind Simmons by every metric except shooting. Defense, passing , rebounds and wins Simmons has it easily. No debate

Gobert is a beast! I said earlier that there is genuine reason for debate, I don't think we can say "hands down" either is better. Hell we've only got one year to go on. Even Ben Gordon pulled together one good year! I've still got Ben (Simmons, not Gordon) based mainly on defense, I think Mitchell is marginally ahead of him offensively (agree on the assists thing) but he kills Mitchell in every advanced stat (PER, Win shares, BPM, real +/-) which do (to varying degrees) factor in the role Mitchell had to play but Ben’s percentages on rebounding, steals, blocks and +/- defence just top him out. That said… who cares. It’s rookie of the year. You’ve got Steve Francis, Okafor, Tyreke Evans, Derrick Coleman, Carter Williams etc. Also I do agree with your point above (thought not rebutting it was tacit agreement but will reiterate) about you can’t compare a mid-season versus late season absence of “stars”

Your last point maybe your best yet! Mitchell is playing with a league top ten player (well, he would be top 10 if those that do the rankings understood that defensive greatness is equally as impactful as offensive performance). I could make the arguments that there are plenty of aspects of Donovan's offensive game that don't tell the true story in the box scores (how often he was asked to carry the scoring as others were able too, how often he had to take bad shots when the clock was winding down, that while he had a low assist number then SImmons, the Jazz offense isn't 1 that generates high assists for any player (look at Rubio's numbers compared to other years) etc) but the truth is, as state in my first comment, the issue for me isn't that Donovan had a better year then Ben, my issue is that the author of the piece makes the ridiculous argument that it wasn't even close. That comment shows a complete lack of knowledge of the game or a lack of study of what Mitchell did this year and the company his performance puts him in (i.e. many of his numbers as a rookie are only bettered by guys like Jordan, Durant, Shaq and Wilt (sure there are others)).

Bit rich to say a scorer does things that don't show up in the box score versus Simmons? Simmons defence crushes Mitchell. not saying Mtichell is bad defnsively but Simmons at PG is a beast that doesn't show up outside of adjsuted +/- style stats. Mitchell isn't the best player on his team either.

You picked up the mic and threw it at me, I just caught it and continued using it! ;-) I couldn't agree with you any less that using the media in the way he did,a fun and joking way, is an issue. It is brilliant guerilla marketing! One that, as well as ribing his rival for Rookie of the year, has moved him up the food chain as far a promoting himself and as side effect, his team. If you have followed the post season NBA, you would be doing it hard not to see him. He hosted interviews in the venue at the draft and has been everywhere, so I hear, at Vegas summer league. Now if the case was that he was deliberately misleading people with fake news or something, you might have a point that he's "morally vacuous" by using the media as he and Adidas has but its a fun poke at a rival! And, it isn't even a direct one saying hes cheat or unworthy or anything else. None of the pokes themselves even directly make the claim/argument the media reported they made. Suggest them, yeah sure, but none directly make them. I mean, its not like he claimed "none" of the other rookies have caught his attention or anything! Who would be classless enough to do that? ....Oh, right!!!!!

Come on mate, Mitchell led a worse team to the 5th seed in the West and past the OK3. Simmons couldn't even beat a baby celtics with Joel Embiid alongside him. Mitchell does things that doesn't show up in the box score. And yeah Simmons is an aussie and I love him but Mitchell is just a better player hands down. Simmons isn't even the best on his team and you could make the argument that Tatum is better as well.

Oh so you picked the mic back up? Good to see you don't even understand what that means... If you knowingly "endorse" sonething you don't agree with the I actually have zero respect for Mitchell- he's simply vapid. But as I raised above I don't think that is the case as he never tried to distance himself from the insinuation. I'm a massive proponent of athletes being able to monetise their profile. But you can't play the "I just had to get paid" card that means you're saying Mitchell is morally vacuous. I said he knew what he was communicating and you made some ridiculous claim about EXACT without understanding what the word meant. Never said he "said it" (communication is more than explicit verbal, which should be obvious given the medium we are discussing this via) I said he knowingly communicated it, which you agreed with. And I said you are being disingenuous if you believe not explicitly saying it absolves him. Nothing. Literally nothing you have presented has addressed that. Hope you can hold the mic this time..

So, you don't think anyone has ever known how something would be received and knowing this, taken personal advantage of the way the media works to profit for there own means whether or not they agree with the way it will be taken? Really? Now who has lost their grip on reality? I again ask: Show me evidence that MItchell ever said that Simmons wasn't a rookie?

Did the mic slip from your grasp like reality? If your EXACT argument was about shoes deals (I believe Simmons signed with nike as it was covered post draft and to be honest I didn't care to remember whose sponsor Mitchell's shirt was from as it was superfluous info to me) then why is this the first mention of shoes? And I'm not sure how repeated presentation of an endorsement makes it less of an endorsement? Still, that failure of logic aside you miss the point. You acknowledge he knew the message that would be received, Ipso facto he communicated that message. He can't simultaneously know what message will be communicated and be removed from the message he is endorsing. The inference was he wasn't a rookie and he backed that up with his exam comment. You're clutching at straws to suggest otherwise given: 1. It is clearly how it has been, and would be expected to be, received 2. You acknowledge he knew what he was doing (so that is intent) 3. He hasn't tried to refute the inference

You know you just made my arguement on the t-shirt, right? THAT WAS MY EXACT ARGUMENT! He knew the media would eat up that was wearing a t-shirt that had ago at Ben's rookie status. Did you see the coverage of the shirt? Did you see the prominent Adidas logo on it? Did you see the follow-up Hoodie (or did it come first, I forget)? Did you see the logo AGAIN! Did you see it everywhere (NBA coverage, The Jump on ESPN, every other network, websites, blogs, podcasts, news, etc, etc, etc, etc)! Do you know what that would cost to buy that much advertising for adidas? Did you see the van he turned up to the awards ceremony in? Would you be shocked to know it also had aan Adidas logo on it as well? Without looking, what company is Ben with? I have no idea! Now ask yourself a question, Who gets a signature shoe first? If rumors are true, D Mitch's is on its way already! I am not a shoe guy, but what I hear, not many guys get signature shoes and has one already (if rumors are true). I would say he played the media like a fiddle! By the way, what was the message? Rookie? (no judgement, just a question). Hoodie's message was what a rookie was defined as, and as Ben said (I believe) it fit Ben's status. So again I ask, when did DM say Ben wasn't a rookie? #MicDropped