Chet vs Wemby II Was Electric And It Feels Like We're Destined For The First Co-Rookie Of The Year In Over 20 Years

Ronald Cortes. Getty Images.

Now a little over the midway point of the NBA season, when you start to go down the list of the NBA Awards there are a few that at this moment in time aren't really up for debate. For example, as of January 25th, Joel Embiid is clearly the league's MVP. There's no need to overthink that one right now. Tyrese Maxey probably has the MIP locked up, even if I'm more of a Alperen Sengun guy myself, that's not crazy either. Gobert the same thing with DPOY as of today.

But Rookie Of The Year? Good luck. 

When it comes to Chet vs Wemby, it does feel like we have another Ben Simmons vs Donovan Mitchell situation on our hands just like we did back in 2017-18. One guy is a redshirt rookie who is playing at an insane level, and the other is a traditional rookie who is also playing at an insane level. Their battle last night only added more fuel to the fire

Personally, even though they are both rookies, to me it's not apples to apples. Having a full year in the NBA world does give a player an advantage, even if they haven't played one second of basketball. The training, the routines, and the experience of simply being an NBA player, all help a player like Chet even while sitting out, where Wemby hasn't had that same luxury. 

At the same time, I don't really care about that when talking about ROY. I've always looked at ROY as what you did on the basketball court in your very first season of actually playing. When we do that and compare the two young stars, this is what we get

Here's what makes this debate so tricky. In terms of counting stats, Wemby obviously clears. But like all things when discussing counting stats using things like scoring, roles matter. Wemby is able to take over 5 more FGA a night than Chet, because in SA all they really have is Wemby and like Devin Vassell to provide any sort of consistent offense. Chet is the more efficient player so far, and has a slight lead in some of the advanced stats, which brings us to the next layer of this debate.

Should impact matter? 

For example, Chet is making a winning impact on Day 1 for a team that is currently #1 in the West. Wemby, as much as he does on a nightly basis, can only do so much given his much less talented supporting cast. Sure his numbers are great, but should the 8-36 Spurs record be held against him in something like this?

When I look at things through this lens, I tend to lean back to Chet. The production alone would be enough to be in consideration for ROY, but to add it to not just a winning team, but the best team in the conference while playing 30 minutes a night? That has to matter. On the flip side, if you put Wemby on OKC and Chet on SA, don't you get the sense that things would be pretty much the same as we're seeing now? 

So if the production is close, whenever they face each other it delivers, and we can't really use the team success in a ROY convo considering how different the rosters look, how the hell are we supposed to come up with a clear choice? When I think back to the Mitchell/Simmons debate, that was a bit different since both teams were right next to each other in terms of success. PHI was 52-30, CLE was 50-32. The only thing there was the numbers weren't exactly as balanced between the two

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The main gripe there was simply that Simmons wasn't a "true" rookie, just like Chet.

There may only be one way to go with this award, and luckily there's a precedent for it. Granted some reading this blog may not have even been alive when this happened, but we have been here before. Our first instance came in 1970-71 with Dave Cowens and Geoff Petrie, then a couple of decades went by and once we got to 1994-95, we got it again when Jason Kidd and Grant Hill were named Co-ROYs. Looking back, it's hard to argue with that decision. 

Then a few more years went by and we saw it again in 1999-2000 with Elton Brand and Steve Francis.

As you can see, something like we're seeing in 2023-24 has happened before, and even though it's been over 20 years since we've seen it, I think we finally have a situation where it makes the most sense. I just don't know how you pick one or the other when it comes to Chet vs Wemby, and we're only halfway through the season! It's more than likely that both guys continue to get even better as the year goes on, which is only going to make this debate even tougher.

So while it may seem like a cop-out to award a Co-ROY and be spun in this weird "everyone gets a trophy" narrative, this might be one of the few times in NBA history it actually makes sense to do. They've both been that superb as rookies given their own unique situations. They aren't being asked to do the same thing right now for their respective teams, but if ROY is more about which rookie has the best production/play, that's about as neck and neck as you could possibly get at this point to where it doesn't feel right to choose one over the other.

These situations are rare in NBA history, and they usually require a unicorn-type player to happen. I'd say that's exactly what we have with Chet and Wemby.