Redshirted Rookies vs. True Rookies

When it comes to professional sports, health is always a main issue. At the end of the day its a business and if the product isn't able to be on the floor then there is a problem. The NBA's solution to this is to rest their players on certain nights to make their careers last longer. This has become a solution to players and owners, but to fans this seems unfair. In recent history, some NBA teams have drafted players who are injured and unable to play their rookie season. I call this redshirting. Redshirting is something you do to college players their freshman year. They sit out one year learning the system of your team and figuring things out so that the next year they'll play better. This doesn't always necessarily pan out but it works majority of the time. When looking at raw talent, people praise true freshmen over redshirted freshmen because a true freshman is straight out of high school.

With this being said, more and more rookie players in the NBA are being drafted while not being able to play for the first few months of the season, but around All-Star breaks these players are being cleared to play. Most teams(mainly the 76ers) are holding players out until the next season. I feel as if when a player is cleared to play then they should play. Coaches and executives are looking at it in multiple ways: 1) they don't want the player to become re-injured. 2) this may hurt their chances of winning rookie of the year since they'd only have limited playing time and 3) it may hurt their draft chances if this new player may increase win probability in the current season. So what do teams do ? They sit these rookie players out the entire season until next season.

In this off-year of rookie players not playing organized basketball, the player is training with NBA trainers,coaches, and players on a daily basis. They are getting stronger and smarter within the game of basketball. They are taking an entire year off to completely focus on being the best player they can possibly be. While they are doing this, the rest of the players are going to classes in college and competing in NCAA tournaments and trying their best to make the league. Yes they are focused on basketball but not in the way a Redshirted Rookie can. Notable Redshirted Rookies include: Blake Griffin, Joel Embiid, Ben Simmons, & Ricky Rubio. In their rookie year these players played notably better than the rest of the rookies in their rookie class. Ben Simmons is currently playing his rookie season now but you can tell he's miles ahead of the rest of the rookies. Lonzo Ball is currently the best true rookie in the league right number statistically and Ben Simmons' numbers are destroying his. If teams continue to do this, I feel like we should separate the true rookies and the Redshirted Rookies. This will make the Rookie of the Year award more fairly placed with a players draft class.