Rookie Team Of The Week: Ryan Kelly Shines

Ryan Kelly makes The Rookie Team Of The Week after stepping into the Lakers starting line up.

-PG- Shane Larkin (18th Dallas Mavericks)

It was announced last week that Gal Mekel was going to be out for the season after tearing his right lateral meniscus, this was bad news for the Mavericks, but good news for Shane Larkin. Larkin himself is coming off a serious injury after breaking his right ankle in summer league practice and is just now finding his feet in the NBA. Since Mekel went down Larkin’s role has increased, he has been averaging around 22 minutes per game and putting up some nice numbers: 10ppg 3.3apg 1.6spg, pretty impressive stats for a rookie coming off a  serious injury. For those who haven’t seen, Larkin has tremendous speed, the scary thing is Larkin was quoted to say “I honestly don’t feel like I’m back to my full quickness,”. With Devin Harris now returning back, it is possible Larkin’s role again diminishes, but I wanted to get him on the RTOTW while he deserved it!

-SG- CJ McCollum (10th Portland Trail Blazers)

CJ hasn’t been setting the world alight since his return, but he has been adding a nice spark of a winning blazers team. I know the Blazers are not exactly a lottery team, but they are a prime example of how a lottery team should make the jump to the playoffs, so we’re sticking with them for this year. McCollum is shooting a very respectable field goal percentage  of 45.5% and a three point percentage of 36.4%. If McCollum can stay healthy for the rest of the year not only will he add another weapon to the Blazers bench, but he has the potential to develop into one of the best sixth men in the league.

-SF- Tony Snell (20th Chicago Bulls)

Snell gets on the RTOTW due to the painfully poor rookie crop of small forwards, just look at this list: Anthony Bennett, Otto Porter, Shabazz Muhammed, Sergey Karasev, Solomon Hill, Reggie Bullock, and that’s just the 1^st round! Since Deng’s departure to Cleveland Snell’s opportunities have increased, unfortunately for the Bulls, his level has play really hasn’t. Snell did average 9ppg 1rpg 2.3apg in his last three games, but he has been shooting dreadfully with a field goal percentage of just 30%. Snell has struggled to be efficient all year, but he has bought into Thibodeau’s defensive system and been an integral part of having the 3^rd best defence in the league. If Snell can become a little more efficient on the offensive end, he can look back on a successful rookie season.

-PF- Ryan Kelly (48th La Lakers)

Kelly was picked at 48 by the Lakers and is (probably will be all year) the lowest selected player to appear on our RTOTW! Up to this week Ryan Kelly was having a fairly quiet rookie season, he was lucky enough to get some minutes on a seriously banged up Laker team. However, in the last week Kelly has been playing like an early lottery selection averaging 16.6ppg 5.3rpg 1.3apg. Wow! Kelly had been a pleasant surprise in an otherwise dreary season for the Lakers. Kelly even got his first NBA start last week, something that looked in serious doubt in October where there were questions if he would even make the Lakers roster. Now that Kelly has had some breakout games he will be on the other team’s scouting report, the next challenge for Kelly is to try and maintain his play near his current level.

-C- Kelly Olynyk ( 13th Boston Celtics)

After a stellar summer league which lead to Olynyk being one of the pre season frontrunners for Rookie Of The Year award, the real NBA season has been somewhat a reality check for the big Canadian. Olynyk has struggled to stay on the court posting 8.3 personal fouls every 48 minutes, which is the most of anyone playing over 16 minutes per game. However, Olynyk proved that when he can stay on the floor he is a handful, he had a breakout game last week against the Lakers posting career highs in minutes played (33) points (25) assists (7) along with 5 rebounds. Defence was always going to be the area Olynyk struggled, if he can learn the nuances of the NBA game and how to hide his deficiencies like Dirk Nowitzki then he could set himself up for more nights like the one against the Lakers.