Only five players have won the NBA Rookie of the Year award unanimously.
The NBA has seen some of the best players to ever step foot on the hardwood enter the league and have strong rookie campaigns straight out of the gate over the years.
But, only five players have ever unanimously won Rookie of the Year.
The award has been given to the top first-year player since the 1952-53 season when Don Meineke of the Fort Wayne Pistons won. Thirty of the non-active winners have been inducted into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame and 22 were drafted with the No. 1 pick in the NBA draft.
The winners are selected by a global panel of sportswriters and broadcasters. The voters submit ballots with three players — first place (five points), second place (three points) and third place (one point) — and the player with the highest point total is the winner.
There have been several players that have come close to winning unanimously, like Ja Morant in 2020 (99 first-place votes) or even this year with Paolo Banchero (98 first-place votes), but only five have received every first-place vote.
Here are the players to have won Rookie of the Year unanimously.
Rockets star Ralph Sampson, a former NBA All-Star and Hall of Famer, played an instrumental role in that game.
It was one of the most memorable moments in NBA history. The fight in a 1986 postseason matchup between the Boston Celtics and Houston Rockets was the most infamous brawl in NBA history until it was supplanted by the Malice in the Palace many years later.
Rockets star Ralph Sampson, a former NBA All-Star and Hall of Famer, played an instrumental role in that game, which is remembered as one of the most intense and physical playoff games ever played. Alongside Hakeem Olajuwon, Sampson helped lead the Rockets to a hard-fought victory over the Celtics.
To hear his account of that famous altercation from the other side, check out Sampson’s interview on the CLNS Media “Cedric Maxwell” podcast with the show’s eponymous host in the video embedded below.
The Lakers failed the reach the NBA Finals in 1986 due to a painful loss in the Western Conference Finals to the Rockets.
In 1984 and 1985, the Los Angeles Lakers and Boston Celtics faced off in the NBA Finals with both teams taking home one championship each, and it was assumed that 1986 would bring a rubber match.
L.A. won 62 regular season games for the second year in a row, but head coach Pat Riley sensed some warning signs as the playoff opened.
His squad swept the San Antonio Spurs in the first round, then had some trouble against the Dallas Mavericks, needing six contests to finish them off in the second round.
The Western Conference Finals pitted Showtime versus the Houston Rockets, a team that had a twin towers combo of young stars Hakeem Olajuwon and Ralph Sampson.
The Lakers won Game 1 easily, and it looked like another championship matchup with Boston was imminent.
But Houston took Game 2, and when the series moved to Texas, Olajuwon was unstoppable as it won both Game 3 and Game 4.
All of a sudden, L.A. was facing elimination at home in Game 5.
Magic Johnson had 24 points and 13 assists, while 39-year-old Kareem Abdul-Jabbar turned the clock back, as he so often did in big games, with 26 points and 13 rebounds.
When Olajuwon was ejected for fighting with backup big man Mitch Kupchak with 5:14 left in the fourth quarter and the Lakers leading 103-99, it looked like they were about to win and stay alive.
But the Rockets fought back to tie the game at 112, and they had the ball with one second remaining.
Rodney McCray inbounded the ball to Sampson, who was 10 feet away from the hoop, guarded by Abdul-Jabbar with his back to the basket.
In one motion, Sampson caught the ball, turned and shot it.
Good.
The Forum went silent as the fans there realized that the Lakers had just been knocked out of the playoffs.
Riley later admitted that his team had been complacent all season after beating the Celtics to win the world championship the year before.
On the bright side, the loss seemed to awaken a monster, as the Lakers came back even stronger and won back-to-back titles in 1987 and 1988.
As the NBA honors its 75th anniversary with a list of its historical greats, we look back at the top players in Houston Rockets history.
As part of a celebration of its 75th anniversary, the NBA is releasing what it calls the NBA 75 — a list of the greatest players in league history.
With that in mind, we’re looking back at the greats over that same time period who played for the Rockets. Founded in 1967 in San Diego before moving to Houston in 1971, the Rockets are clearly one of the league’s flagship clubs. With 2,286 wins and 2,074 losses, the .529 winning clip by the Rockets ranks eighth among the league’s 30 active franchises, and they are one of only 11 teams with multiple championships (1994, 1995).
Some ground rules: Since this exercise is to determine an overall roster, this list contains position biases. For example, even though the Rockets have a long history of elite centers, a team wouldn’t be likely to carry six centers on a 15-man roster. Thus, some greats did not make the cut.
Also, this roster defers to each player’s specific contributions in Houston. In other words, even though Scottie Pippen is a Hall of Famer and an all-time NBA legend, he played just one season with the Rockets and was past his prime at that time — which makes him not a fit for an all-time Houston list. Similar logic holds true with Russell Westbrook.
Without any further delay, here’s our all-time Rockets roster, and be sure to check out our other NBA Wire sites for rival comparisons.
