The NBA All-Rookie teams were announced today, and the Denver Nuggets placed Jamal Murray on the second team. He was the leading vote-getter among second-teamers, finishing 5 points behind Willy Hernangomez. Buddy Hield and Jamal Murray had nearly identical seasons but being the centerpiece of a major trade has a way of boosting one’s profile, and Hield rode that to the first team.
The complete press announcement from the NBA is here, but the interesting line for me is Joel Embiid getting 7 second-place votes and being left off 11 ballots entirely. He and Murray had the same number of total team placements. Juancho Hernangomez also received 5 votes (the same number as Kris Dunn) but since his brother Willy made the first-team Juancho doesn’t even get family bragging rights. It’s tough to win brownie points in the Hernangomez family.
Murray happened to tweet this shortly after the announcement was made, which provides some clue on his assessment of the voting:
While it’s certain Murray will use missing first team as even more motivation going forward, congratulations to him for his team placement and to Juancho for getting votes even in limited minutes. Denver has plenty of young bright spots on its roster right now. See the full first and second team listings below.
