SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Tyreke Evans has won hundreds of trophies in his young basketball career and many of them seem to have lost an arm, a basketball or some other piece in his mother’s care.
Bonita Evans will have to wait to get the NBA rookie of the year trophy Evans won Thursday until some safeguards are in place in the home he is building her in Delaware.
“She’s broken too many,” Evans said. “I probably have 400 trophies and about a hundred of them broke. I’d come downstairs and she’d try to glue them back together, but it was too late. I didn’t care about it. But the main important trophies, we’re going to put them in a glass case for her.”
Evans capped his fabulous rookie year for the Kings by beating out Golden State’s Stephen Curry and Milwaukee’s Brandon Jennings for the coveted award.
Evans became the fourth rookie to average at least 20 points, five rebounds and five assists per game, joining Oscar Robertson, Michael Jordan and LeBron James in an exclusive club.
“This is one of the awards I had a goal of since I came into the NBA, being rookie of the year,” Evans said. “I’m proud it came true. It was one of my dreams since I was little. I finally had a chance for my dream to come true.”
Evans, the fourth pick in last year’s NBA draft after spending one season at Memphis, led all rookies in scoring at 20.1 points per game, was second in assists at 5.8 per game and fifth in rebounds at 5.3. He was the only rookie to appear on all 123 ballots from a media panel, getting 67 first-place votes and 491 total points.
Curry was second with 43 first-place votes and 391 points, with Jennings getting 12 first-place votes and 204 points. Players were awarded five points for a first-place vote, three for a second and one for a third.
James nursing sore elbow
INDEPENDENCE, Ohio — LeBron James shot left-handed layups and short jumpers at practice, but the Cavaliers superstar is not expected to miss any of Cleveland’s playoff games because of his strained right elbow and bone bruise.
Cleveland opens its best-of-seven playoff series against Boston on Saturday.
“I’ll be ready for Game 1,” James said, “and I’ll be a productive player.”
The Celtics are expecting nothing less.
“He’s fine,” Celtics coach Doc Rivers said. “If he goes three or four games and shoots left-handed only, then I’ll believe it’s hurting. We’ll be ready for the LeBron we’ve seen all through the playoffs.”
NBA rookie of the year voting
Selected by a national panel of 123 sportswriters and broadcasters, players were awarded five points for each first-place vote, three points for each second-place vote and one point for each third-place vote received:
Player, team 1st 2nd 3rd Pts
Tyreke Evans, Sacramento 67 50 6 491
Stephen Curry, Golden State 43 50 26 391
Brandon Jennings, Milwaukee 12 22 78 204
Darren Collison, New Orleans 1 1 9 17
Jonny Flynn, Minnesota — — 2 2
Taj Gibson, Chicago — — 2 2
