{"id":825822,"date":"2013-12-03T18:32:58","date_gmt":"2013-12-04T02:32:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cowbellkingdom.com\/?p=25265"},"modified":"2013-12-03T18:32:58","modified_gmt":"2013-12-04T02:32:58","slug":"ben-mclemore-named-nba-western-conference-rookie-of-the-month","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesportsdaily.com\/news\/ben-mclemore-named-nba-western-conference-rookie-of-the-month\/","title":{"rendered":"Ben McLemore named NBA Western Conference Rookie of the Month"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/cowbellkingdom.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/ben_mclemore_clips.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-25267\" alt=\"Ben McLemore vs. the Clips (Photo: Kimani David)\" src=\"http:\/\/cowbellkingdom.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/ben_mclemore_clips.jpg\" width=\"600\" height=\"400\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Ben McLemore has been named the NBA\u2019s Western Conference Rookie of the Month. The league announced earlier today that the 20-year-old rookie earned the honor for games played in October\/November.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s mean a lot to win Rookie of the Month,\u201d McLemore said prior to Tuesday\u2019s game against the Oklahoma City Thunder. \u201cI worked really hard to get better each and every day, trying to improve my game.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>McLemore, selected seventh overall in last June\u2019s draft, led all rookies in the Western Conference in scoring (9.1 points per game) and minutes (22.8 minutes per game). He shot 37.8 percent from the field and 35 percent from 3-point range.<\/p>\n<p>McLemore scored in in double figures on six different occasions, including a career-high 19 points against the Golden State Warriors on Nov. 2 and Phoenix Suns on Nov. 19. He is currently tied with the Sixers\u2019 <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/c\/cartemi01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-cowbellkingdom.com\" target=\"_blank\">Michael Carter-Williams<\/a><\/strong> for first among rookies with 21 three-pointers made in the first month of the season. \u00a0Carter-Williams was also named Rookie of the Month, but in the Eastern Conference.<\/p>\n<p>McLemore began the season on the bench, but claimed teammate Marcus Thornton\u2019s place in the starting lineup following the \u00a0Kings&#8217; first six games. Since becoming a starter, McLemore has had his ups and downs, averaging just 8.8 points on 33.3-percent shooting from the field in 24.3 minutes per game.<\/p>\n<p>Despite his struggles, head coach Michael Malone is hopeful that the award boosts McLemore&#8217;s confidence.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI never want him getting down, whether he wins this award or not, because he\u2019s working and doing the things that we\u2019re asking,\u201d Malone said. \u201cAnd this year is about him growing up and learning all of this so next year, he doesn\u2019t have to go through it again.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSometimes you feel like you\u2019re almost throwing him to the wolves in a sense,\u201d Malone added. \u201cBut that\u2019s the only way he\u2019s gonna learn and it\u2019s going to speed up that learning curve quite a bit by going out there and starting and playing against some of the best two guards in the NBA every night.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>McLemore becomes the fifth rookie in Kings franchise history to win the honor. Isaiah Thomas was the last King to be named Western Conference Rookie of the Month for games he played in March 2012.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/James_Ham\" target=\"_blank\">James Ham<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0also contributed to this post.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>McLemore named best rookie in the west for the months of October\/November.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[610259261],"tags":[34017575,35890,522941,4764763,24529423,5944924,76558,76563],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v22.2 (Yoast SEO v22.2) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Ben McLemore named NBA Western Conference Rookie of the Month - The Sports Daily<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/thesportsdaily.com\/news\/ben-mclemore-named-nba-western-conference-rookie-of-the-month\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Ben McLemore named NBA Western Conference Rookie of the Month\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/thesportsdaily.com\/news\/ben-mclemore-named-nba-western-conference-rookie-of-the-month\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Sports Daily\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2013-12-04T02:32:58+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/cowbellkingdom.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/ben_mclemore_clips.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Alan Draper\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@sportsdailytsd\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@sportsdailytsd\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Alan Draper\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"NewsArticle\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/thesportsdaily.com\/news\/ben-mclemore-named-nba-western-conference-rookie-of-the-month\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/thesportsdaily.com\/news\/ben-mclemore-named-nba-western-conference-rookie-of-the-month\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Alan Draper\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/thesportsdaily.com\/#\/schema\/person\/2c8aadde2571800d0de74323730df7b5\"},\"headline\":\"Ben McLemore named NBA Western Conference Rookie of the Month\",\"datePublished\":\"2013-12-04T02:32:58+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2013-12-04T02:32:58+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/thesportsdaily.com\/news\/ben-mclemore-named-nba-western-conference-rookie-of-the-month\/\"},\"wordCount\":397,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/thesportsdaily.com\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/thesportsdaily.com\/news\/ben-mclemore-named-nba-western-conference-rookie-of-the-month\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"http:\/\/cowbellkingdom.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/ben_mclemore_clips.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Ben McLemore\",\"Featured\",\"Isaiah Thomas\",\"marcus thornton\",\"Michael Carter-Williams\",\"Michael Malone\",\"Philadelphia 76ers\",\"sacramento kings\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Cowbell Kingdom\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"copyrightYear\":\"2013\",\"copyrightHolder\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/thesportsdaily.com\/#organization\"}},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/thesportsdaily.com\/news\/ben-mclemore-named-nba-western-conference-rookie-of-the-month\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/thesportsdaily.com\/news\/ben-mclemore-named-nba-western-conference-rookie-of-the-month\/\",\"name\":\"Ben McLemore named NBA Western Conference Rookie of the Month - 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