NBA: 9 extremely bold predictions for the 2019-20 season

Ja Morant will win Rookie of the Year

Zion Williamson is the most hyped rookie prospect to enter the league since LeBron James and understandably, as a result, most people are picking him to run away with the Rookie of the Year award.

But people forget about the number two pick in this year’s draft, Ja Morant and how good he is.

Now, I’m not saying that Ja Morant is better than Zion at this point, nor am I saying he’s going to have the better NBA career.

However, I think he is in with a pretty serious shot at ROY for a few reasons, one of the main ones being the situation he is coming into compared to Williamson.

Zion is going to have to share the court with Jrue Holiday, Brandon Ingram, J.J. Redick and Lonzo Ball who will all be looking for their touches, whereas Ja will have Jaren Jackson Jr., Jonas Valanciunas and not much else.

And with the Grizzlies trading away their franchise point guard, Mike Conley to the Jazz this summer, it’s clear that Morant is being handed the keys to the offense from day one. Although Jackson and JV will get their shots, it will unquestionably be Ja who is running this offense.

The same cannot be said for Zion as Pelicans’ GM, David Griffin has come out and said that even despite drafting him number one overall, this is still Jrue Holiday’s team (and you can’t be mad at that, given how good Jrue is).

It’ll probably still be a close race for the award but thanks to an abundance of opportunities, minutes and the ultimate green light, I just expect Ja to put up bigger numbers in this upcoming season which, at the end of the day, is what ROY comes down to.