Ben Simmons Wins NBA Rookie Of The Year

PHILADELPHIA, PA — Jayson Tatum may have led an improbable Boston Celtics run to the Eastern Conference Finals, and Donovan Mitchell may have spurred the Utah Jazz to unexpected heights, but when the dust from the 2017-18 NBA season had settled, only one player was being compared with someone like Magic Johnson: Ben Simmons.

Monday night made it official: Ben Simmons is the Rookie of the Year.

Simmons has not just been compared with Magic Johnson, the Los Angeles Lakers-great. Highlight reels from Simmons this season were spliced with some of Johnson's greatest career moves. No look passes. Basketballs fired across the court like a quarterback. All out drives to the net, huge frames moving gracefully through defenders with the speed of a point guard and the strength of a center.

Simmons may not have won the NBA Finals like Johnson did in his rookie year, but he did lead the 76ers to the Eastern Conference Semifinals, and he outdid Johnson's mark for triple doubles in a rookie season, earning 12 to Johnson's 7. Simmons' 12 triple doubles trail only Oscar Robertson's 26 for the most in a season by a rookie in NBA history.

The 76ers star forward-turned-point guard finished the year averaging 15.8 points, 8.1 rebounds, and 8.2 assists per game. There was ceaseless chatter over the final month of the season and into the playoffs that Mitchell and Tatum had worked their way into the conversation. Tatum was more impressive in the postseason, and Mitchell averaged 20.5 points throughout the regular season. Neither player passed or rebounded with anything near the efficiency of Simmons, however, and, as the award proved, neither player maintained the same kind of dominance throughout the entire season that Simmons did.

The voting, in fact, was not remotely close. Simmons earned 90 first place votes to Mitchell's 11. Tatum received zero first place votes and two for second.

Simmons becomes the third 76er to win the award, after Michael Carter-Williams and, of course, Allen Iverson. Fellow 76er Joel Embiid finished runner-up in the Defensive Player of the Year voting Monday, while Houston Rockets star James Harden won MVP.

Image via Youtube Screenshot