 Yo, what's up, everyone? Welcome back to another video. Shit, man, peep it, but new merch is coming out soon. I wanna obviously talk about something a little bit personal, real quick, before I start with the video. Okay, so I haven't posted in a few days. If you guys follow my Twitter, I'll leave the link down on the screen right now. Follow me on Twitter if you guys wanna stay updated with things like this. But, um, somebody in my family passed away, so I didn't really feel like making videos and things like that. I couldn't be bothered going on social media. If there's a reason why I didn't reply to, you know, your tweets, your emails and things like that, now you know the reason. I just wasn't in the mood. So thank you for all the love and support over on Twitter. I really, really appreciate it. But onto the video, enough about that. Sorry to start off on a really negative note. I just wanna say thank you for all the support. You guys are seriously the best. Like, honestly, thank you so much for all your support and things like that. But today, we're gonna be talking about the 2017-18 Rookie of the Year candidates and we're just gonna be talking about who I believe. And I don't think there's any reason to not get started right now. There's nothing else I really need to say, so let's just hop straight into the list. Before I get started with the top five, I do have some players that I wanna give a quick shout out to that definitely have a chance to win it, but I just can't see them winning it. The first one is Jason Tatum. I just think on a Boston Celtics team with so many great players, including Gordon Hayward, Isaiah Thomas, Al Horvid, I just can't see him having that many minutes to actually win Rookie of the Year. They've still got Jaylen Brown, who they had last year, who he's gonna develop a little bit more. Now, Jason Tatum, let's say he was on another team, maybe a team like the Sacramento Kings or a team like the Lakers or a team like the 76ers. He would definitely have a really strong chance. And he'd probably make the list to be as one of the selections for my Rookie of the Year candidates. But just because he's part of a Celtics team that will probably make the Eastern Conference finals, I just can't see him winning Rookie of the Year. The next player is Josh Jackson, who I do think is a really good player, but I just can't see him making a top four list in my opinion. He's a great player. I love him, but I don't think he's gonna win Rookie of the Year. But he definitely does have a chance. He might surprise me. And the last quick mention I wanna give a shout out to is D'Aaron Fox, who has the quickness and the ability of John Wall's a rookie, but I just can't see him winning Rookie of the Year over the guys that I'm gonna mention. And I think the fact that he has to play behind George Hill really hurts his chances as well. But definitely he has a strong chance to make a case for Rookie of the Year. I will be really excited to see how Willie Coley-Stein, Buddy Hill, and D'Aaron Fox can mesh as a young big three in Sacramento, but I just don't think he's good enough to win Rookie of the Year up against these four guys. Anyway, at number four, Markel Folds. Now, Markel Folds is a really weird player because he was selected first overall in this year's draft. So they wanted a point guard who can score the ball, which is something that Lonzo Ball isn't really good at. I mean, Lonzo Ball can definitely develop his game and become a scorer in the NBA. But I think we can all agree, watching Lonzo from high school and college straight into the NBA, we can see that his main asset is definitely passing the ball and facilitating, which is something that the Philadelphia 76ers didn't need after drafting Ben Simmons in last year's NBA draft. Now, we're gonna get into Ben Simmons a little later on, but the reason why I think Ben Simmons will actually ruin Markel Folds' chances of winning the Rookie of the Year is just simply because of the way that the 76ers want to run their offense. It's pretty unclear what he will do entering the NBA because he's gonna be sharing the floor with Ben Simmons. So exactly what contributions that Folds will provide in Philadelphia is really, really unclear. And I don't think he will be the primary ball handler in Philly. I expect Simmons to be well handling the ball facilitating. And that is simply the reason why I think that Ben Simmons will ruin Markel Folds' chances of winning Rookie of the Year. But in saying that, Markel definitely has a chance. And it's almost crazy to think that he is the first overall pick. And the guy that I'm selecting next is actually Dennis Smith Jr. And Dennis Smith, honestly, he may just be the steal of this year's NBA draft. And obviously in every NBA draft, there are steals, top five picks, they're not always the top five players in the NBA. And that's just how it is sometimes. So for me, Dennis Smith, he may be one of those sleeper guys that the Dallas Mavericks picked up, and he looks really, really good. One of the main reasons I can see Dennis Smith Jr. with a huge chance to win Rookie of the Year this season is the fact that the Dallas Mavericks don't really have many players on their roster that are actually that good. I mean, they've got Harrison Barnes, who's all right. They've got Yoji Ferrell, who's pretty good. I mean, he played all right last year and he is only 24 years old. There's gonna be a little bit of a fight for Dennis Smith to actually start, but I think he'll definitely get the starting spot over Yoji Ferrell. And then obviously, you've got to wash it up, Dirk Naveski, who, I mean, he's just playing at this point, 39 years old. He's just doing what he can do on the court. But as for the roster in its entirety, they're not very good. This means that for Dennis Smith, they're literally leaving him with a lot of opportunity to showcase what he can do on a Dallas Mavericks team that really has nothing going for them. I mean, when you think about Dallas, they don't have much. Dennis Smith is gonna be able to facilitate. He's gonna be able to score. And there's not gonna be too many restrictions on his game. The only thing that may be a restriction is the fact that they have Yoji Ferrell, who he made an all rookie team last season. But I definitely think that Dennis Smith will get the starting spot. And not only that, Dennis Smith is getting coached by one of the greatest coaches, I think, in the modern era. And for Rick Carlile, if he could coach Ferrell to an all NBA rookie team, I definitely think that what he can do with Dennis Smith Jr. is gonna be awesome. I cannot wait to watch Dennis Smith go ham this season. He is really fun to watch, and he's definitely gonna be a fan favorite. At number two, I've got Lonzo Ball. And a lot of people are gonna be mad at that comment saying that Lonzo Ball should be definitely number one, because, well, he's got the hype around him. But for me, Lonzo Ball is a great player. Lonzo Ball definitely has a chance to win rookie of the year, and he most likely will win rookie of the year. But for me, he's on this list at number two. He obviously has electric play. He's one of the best facilitators that we've seen in a long time. Some compare him to Magic Johnson, which is crazy, but when you watch Lonzo, do you seriously understand how great of a passer he truly is? I mean, even in the Summer League, he averaged 16 points, 9.3 assists, and 7.7 rebounds, almost averaging a triple-double. So there is no doubt in my mind that he will be the favorite to win rookie of the year by the fans heading into next season. Not only does he have the hype surrounding his name, but the hype is real surrounding the LA area. Lonzo is playing in Los Angeles, and LA, as we all know, is one of the biggest NBA teams of all time. Not to mention, Lonzo will be able to play through his mistakes next season. I mean, he will obviously have the ball every single game as the main facilitator, running the point guard. He's six with six, compared to Jason Kidd, which for most players in the NBA, you think that's a crazy comparison, but not for Lonzo ball. And when you think about it, there has been one rookie in NBA history to be a part of the Lakers and win the Rookie of the Year award, and that's been Magic Johnson, the man that just drafted Lonzo ball. So with that being said, I definitely think that Lonzo ball has a huge shot to win Rookie of the Year, and I won't be surprised if he wins Rookie of the Year, but I do have one other guy that I think has a stronger chance to win Rookie of the Year, and his name is Ben Simmons. Now Ben Simmons, obviously, the first overall pick in last year's draft. He's Australian. I'm Australian. I love Ben Simmons. He dominated Summer League when he played last year. He's a point forward. He's six foot 10 to seven feet tall. He's not a great offensive player, but that was last season, because when you think about it, the one floor that Ben Simmons had going into the NBA was his scoring and his offensive game. Now, Ben Simmons is one of the best passing players that we're gonna see in the NBA, just like Lonzo ball, which I cannot wait to watch those two guys run the floor next season. It's gonna be insane, but like I said, Ben Simmons is one of the best big man that can pass the rock. He's gonna be a point forward running the floor. He's quick. He's agile. He's got that vertical leap. So offensively, obviously he was injured this season, so he's had a pretty much the entire year to get his offensive game right, working on his jumper every single day. So I predict that Ben Simmons will probably have a stat line of around 15 points, seven assists and about six rebounds. And if he can average a stat line like that, only two rookies in NBA history have reached those stat lines, Magic Johnson and Oscar Robertson. And is it that unlikely to see Ben Simmons average 15 points, seven assists and six rebounds? Honestly, I don't think so. And this is the reason why I truly believe that Ben Simmons will win the 2017-18 Rookie of the Year. And I hope you guys enjoyed the video. If you did, it would be awesome if you guys could drop a like on the video. Subscribe if you're new to join the Nick Smith Nation, new merchandise coming soon. I've got heaps of designs, heaps of NBA merchandise coming soon, and I think you guys will love it. Follow me on Twitter at NickSmith71218 to stay updated for videos. I've got a whole lot of videos coming out soon. You definitely don't want to miss out. So definitely subscribe to the channel. And let me know down below who you think will win the 2017-18 Rookie of the Year. Check, peep, peep it, peep it, peep it. Coming soon to stay tuned. Nick Smith, we out.