The
National Basketball Association's Rookie of the Year Award is an annual
National Basketball AssociationThe National Basketball Association is the pre-eminent men's professional basketball league in North America. It consists of thirty franchised member clubs, of which twenty-nine are located in the United States and one in Canada...
(NBA) award given since the 1952–53 NBA season, to the top
rookie(s)Rookie is a term for a person who is in his or her first year of play of their sport or has little or no professional experience. The term also has the more general meaning of anyone new to a profession, training or activity Rookie is a term for a person who is in his or her first year of play of...
of the regular season. The winner receives the Eddie Gottlieb Trophy, which is named in honor of the
Philadelphia WarriorsThe Golden State Warriors are an American professional basketball team based in Oakland, California. They are part of the Pacific Division of the Western Conference in the National Basketball Association...
head coach who led the team to the
1946–47 NBA ChampionshipThe 1947 BAA Finals was the championship round of the Basketball Association of America's 1946–47 season. Basketball Association of America would eventually become the National Basketball Association...
. The winner is selected by a panel of sportswriters throughout the
United StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
and
CanadaCanada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
, each of whom casts a vote for first, second and third place selections. Each first-place vote is worth five points; each second-place vote is worth three points; and each third-place vote is worth one point. The player(s) with the highest point total, regardless of the number of first-place votes, wins the award.
The most recent winner of the award was
Blake GriffinBlake Austin Griffin is an American professional basketball player for the Los Angeles Clippers of the National Basketball Association . Griffin had a renowned high school career at Oklahoma Christian School, winning state titles each of his four years under his father, Tommy Griffin, who was the...
. Thirteen of the Rookie of the Year winners have won the NBA Most Valuable Player Award (MVP) during their careers;
Wilt ChamberlainWilton Norman "Wilt" Chamberlain was an American professional NBA basketball player for the Philadelphia/San Francisco Warriors, the Philadelphia 76ers and the Los Angeles Lakers; he also played for the Harlem Globetrotters prior to playing in the NBA...
and
Wes UnseldWestley Sissel "Wes" Unseld is an American former basketball player. He spent his entire NBA career with the Baltimore/Capital/Washington Bullets, and was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 1988.-Early life and college career:Unseld starred on a Seneca High School team...
both accomplished the feat in the same season. Nineteen of the forty two non-active Rookie of the Year winners have been elected to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. Three seasons had joint winners—
Dave CowensDavid William Cowens is a retired American professional basketball player and NBA head coach. At 6'9", he played the center and occasionally the power forward position. He was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 1991...
and
Geoff PetrieGeoffrey Michael Petrie is a former American basketball player and current basketball team executive. A native of Pennsylvania, he played professional basketball in the National Basketball Association for the Portland Trail Blazers where he won NBA Rookie of the Year in 1971...
in the ,
Grant HillGrant Henry Hill is an American professional basketball player who most recently played for the Phoenix Suns. As a collegian with Duke University and early in his professional career with the Detroit Pistons, Hill was widely considered to be one of the best all-around players in the game, often...
and
Jason KiddJason Frederick Kidd is an American professional basketball point guard who plays for the Dallas Mavericks of the National Basketball Association. Raised in Oakland, California, Kidd played college basketball at the University of California, Berkeley and was drafted second overall by the Dallas...
in the as well as
Elton BrandElton Tyron Brand is an American professional basketball player who currently plays for the Philadelphia 76ers of the National Basketball Association...
and
Steve FrancisSteven D'Shawn Francis is an American professional basketball player who last played for the Beijing Ducks of the Chinese Basketball Association. He had also played for the Houston Rockets, Orlando Magic, and New York Knicks...
in the 1999–00 season.
Tim DuncanTimothy Theodore "Tim" Duncan is an American professional basketball player for the San Antonio Spurs of the National Basketball Association . The 6-foot 11-inch , 255-pound power forward/center is a four-time NBA champion, two-time NBA MVP, three-time NBA Finals MVP, and NBA Rookie of the Year...
of the
United States Virgin IslandsThe Virgin Islands of the United States are a group of islands in the Caribbean that are an insular area of the United States. The islands are geographically part of the Virgin Islands archipelago and are located in the Leeward Islands of the Lesser Antilles.The U.S...
,
Patrick EwingPatrick Aloysius Ewing Sr. is a Jamaican-American retired Hall of Fame basketball player and current assistant coach for the National Basketball Association's Orlando Magic. He played most of his career with the NBA's New York Knicks as their starting center and played briefly with the Seattle...
of
JamaicaJamaica is an island nation of the Greater Antilles, in length, up to in width and 10,990 square kilometres in area. It is situated in the Caribbean Sea, about south of Cuba, and west of Hispaniola, the island harbouring the nation-states Haiti and the Dominican Republic...
, and
Pau GasolPau Gasol Sáez is a Spanish professional basketball player for the Los Angeles Lakers of the National Basketball Association . He was born to Marisa Sáez and Agustí Gasol, and he spent his childhood in Spain...
of
SpainSpain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
are the only three winners who were not born in the United States. Duncan is an American citizen, but is considered an international player by the NBA because he was not born in one of the
fifty statesA U.S. state is any one of the 50 federated states of the United States of America that share sovereignty with the federal government. Because of this shared sovereignty, an American is a citizen both of the federal entity and of his or her state of domicile. Four states use the official title of...
or
Washington, D.C.Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
Gasol is the only winner who was trained totally outside the U.S.; Duncan played
college basketballCollege basketball most often refers to the USA basketball competitive governance structure established by the National Collegiate Athletic Association . Basketball in the NCAA is divided into three divisions: Division I, Division II and Division III....
at
Wake ForestThe Wake Forest Demon Deacons men's basketball team participates in the Atlantic Coast Conference and their homecourt is the Lawrence Joel Veterans Memorial Coliseum. Their only Final Four appearance was in 1962 and through the years they have produced several NBA players. The Demon Deacons have...
, while Ewing immigrated to the
Boston areaGreater Boston is the area of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts surrounding the city of Boston. Due to ambiguity in usage, the size of the area referred to can be anywhere between that of the metropolitan statistical area of Boston and that of the city's combined statistical area which includes...
at age 11.
Winners
| ^ |
Denotes player who is still active in the NBA |
| * |
Elected to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame |
| DP # |
Draft pick number |
| DY |
Draft year |
| T |
Territorial pick |
Unofficial winners
Prior to the season, the Rookie of the Year was selected by newspaper writers; however, the NBA does not officially recognize those players as winners. The league did publish the pre-1953 winners in their 1994–95 edition of the
Official NBA Guide and the 1994
Official NBA Basketball Encyclopedia, but those winners have not been listed in subsequent publications.