This week is the beginning of several NBA award nods, including the All-Rookie teams, All-Defensive teams and All-NBA teams. The first news to drop came today with the All-Rookie first and second team honors, which featured Miami Heat standout Jaime Jaquez Jr following his freshman year season.
He joins Rookie of the Year winner Victor Wembanyama, Chet Holmgren, Brandon Miller and Brandin Podziemski to round out the first-team. The All-Rookie second team includes the Utah Jazz’s Keyonte George, Memphis Grizzlies’ GG Jackson, Dallas Maverick’s Derrick Lively, Houston Rocket’s Amen Thompson and OKC Thunder’s Cason Wallace.
Jaquez Jr. received 89 first place votes and 10 second place votes.
This notable achievement included a rookie season statline of 11.9 points, 3.8 rebounds, 2.6 assists and 1.0 steals on 48.9% shooting. The young Miami forward also shot 32.2% from 3-point range and 81.1% from the charity stripe.
This is a player that fell to 18th overall in last year’s draft; viewed as a steal from Pat Riley and the Heat scouting department. Jaquez Jr came into the season as a 23 year-old fresh off four years spent in college for UCLA. His experience as a college player helped view him as a very polished player right out of the gate.
Jaquez Jr’s footwork and patience with the ball in his hands stood out immediately. He wasted no time bursting onto the scene and winning over coach Erik Spoelstra, earning a regular rotation spot for the majority of the season. Christmas Day featured his best performance, where Jaquez Jr filled it up offensively for a career-high 31 points and 10 rebounds on a nationally televised stage against the Philadelphia 76ers.
The Jimmy Butler injury paved a way for the talented rookie to get more reps in during the first round of the postseason. Jaquez Jr started at small forward in the second play-in game and the first four playoff games against the Boston Celtics before suffering an injury that kept him out the final game.
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Well deserved. Very savvy pick at 18.
this is a big deal.
I’ve been watching the Blazers lose on purpose for the past three years so they can “rebuild”, and they haven’t seen a single rookie make the first or second team all-rookie. The fact that the Heat were in the NBA Finals last season and still managed to draft a top-5 rookie is nothing short of incredible.
If you trade him now Pat, I’m outa here!
Congrats. Well deserved.
Triple J is in the house! That is awesome. Crazy that we’ll have another one next year 😉
Jaren Jackson Jr? Awesome!