{"id":131913,"date":"2025-03-31T14:52:59","date_gmt":"2025-03-31T18:52:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=131913"},"modified":"2025-03-31T14:52:59","modified_gmt":"2025-03-31T18:52:59","slug":"alex-sarr-rookie-of-the-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2025\/03\/31\/alex-sarr-rookie-of-the-year\/","title":{"rendered":"Evaluating Alex Sarr’s Rookie of the Year Candidacy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Alex Sarr<\/a> has been moved to number three in the latest NBA.com rookie ladder.<\/a> With just a month left in the season, Sarr has been steadily improving. However, is Sarr’s recent play<\/a> enough to propel him over the competition? While he will certainly be selected for an all-rookie team, the hardware is what everyone wants. Has he done enough to have a shot at the award?<\/p>\n

Evaluating Alex Sarr’s Rookie of the Year Candidacy<\/h2>\n

Sarr hasn’t had the best rookie campaign, however, playing on a rebuilding team does have bonuses. With the Wizards being officially eliminated from play-in contention, Sarr will get even more minutes as the season winds down. Sarr wasn’t close to the award conversation until recently. At the beginning of March, teammate Bub Carrington<\/a> (8) was higher on the ladder than Sarr (9). Headed into April, Sarr has firmly pushed himself back into the Rookie of the Year conversation.<\/p>\n

Recent Play<\/h3>\n

Sarr hasn’t just improved, he looks like a completely different player. Since the All-Star break, he’s been averaging<\/a> 17.2 points, 6.6 rebounds, 2.3 assists and 1.5 blocks. He also dropped his career high (34) on Nikola Jokic<\/a> and has only continued to push his name into the award conversation. His shooting has also taken a huge jump. Since the break his field goal percentage has jumped two percent (41.4%) and his three-point percentage has jumped five percent (35%), two notable improvements.<\/p>\n

His last 10 games<\/a> have been a huge reason his name is where it is now. He’s averaged 19.6 points, 6.2 rebounds, 2.2 assists, and 1.8 blocks while also shooting 44.9% from the field and 36.9% from three. In five of those games, he’s scored 20 or more. He’s had three double-doubles since the start of March and has been one of the biggest reasons that Washington is no longer at the bottom of the league standings.<\/a><\/p>\n

Sarr currently sits at second in points<\/a>, fifth in rebounds<\/a>, sixth in assists<\/a>, and is tied for first<\/a> in blocks among all rookies this season. His biggest argument for Rookie of the Year is improvement. He’s shown that he can grow to be elite at both ends of the floor and has improved noticeably since the start of the season.<\/p>\n

Competition for Award<\/h3>\n

Although the MVP conversation<\/a> is one of the closest and historically one for the ages, the Rookie of the Year race is also tighter than it has been in a while. As mentioned, Sarr sits at three, with two guys ahead of him and looking to add to the prestigious award to early their resum\u00e9.<\/p>\n

Zaccharie Risacher<\/h3>\n

The number one pick also wasn’t high in the conversation until recently. Zaccharie Risacher <\/a>and Sarr have been moving up the ladder together and have both shown serious improvement in the last month. Rishacher’s<\/a> last 10 games have seen him average 17.7 points, 4.3 rebounds, and 1.2 assists. His shooting has also seen some improvement. Since the break<\/a>, his percentages have jumped from 43.3% to 49.5% from the field and 31.7% to 41.1% from three. The Hawks will need him to continue his consistency, as he’s become a bigger piece in the offense heading into the postseason.<\/p>\n

Stephon Castle<\/h3>\n

The guy ahead of them both. Stephon Castle<\/a> has held the number-one spot since the end of January. Castle has the benefit of playing for a team missing both of their best players, Victor Wembanyama<\/a> and De’Aaron Fox<\/a> both went down with season-ending injuries.<\/a> During this stretch, Castle has shown he can be the Spurs’ future third option. Castle is certainly the front-runner for the award. Averaging<\/a> 19.2 points, 5.1 assists, 4.3 rebounds along with a steal a game in the last ten games is something to hang your hat on.<\/p>\n

However, his shooting splits haven’t seen the improvement that Sarr or Risacher did. His field goal percentage<\/a> has only moved up around a percent and a half since the break (43.4%). His three-point percentage has not improved at all, it’s gotten worse. Since the break, it is at one of the lowest marks for all rookies (27.5%). The Rookie of the Year race holds more than just these three guys, however, they have edged a slight lead compared to the following cast of guys behind them in the ladder.<\/p>\n

The Last Word<\/h3>\n

Sarr certainly has his work cut out for him heading into April. However, the award could come down to who has shown improvement throughout the season. Castle has the edge for now being that he has been playing around the same level or higher all season. Castle, Sarr, and Risacher have all improved since the beginning of the season, with Sarr taking the biggest jumps. One big performance from any of these three guys could push the award toward them and away from the others.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Photo credit: \u00a9 Peter Creveling-Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Alex Sarr has been moved to number three in the latest NBA.com rookie ladder. With just a month left in the season, Sarr has been steadily improving. However, is Sarr’s recent play enough to propel him over the competition? While he will certainly be selected for an all-rookie team, the hardware is what everyone wants. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5480,"featured_media":131978,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"1","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1608,62,18],"tags":[49244],"class_list":["post-131913","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-basketball","category-nba","category-wizards","tag-alex-sarr"],"modified_by":"Eamon Cassels, Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131913","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5480"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=131913"}],"version-history":[{"count":22,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131913\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":131979,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131913\/revisions\/131979"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/131978"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=131913"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=131913"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=131913"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}