FanHouse's NBA Rookie of the Year

It's trophy time in the NBA, and the FanHouse crew has submitted its ballots. Find out which players deserve to take home the hardware and which ones don't, in our NBA Awards series. Next up: Rookie of the Year.

Coming into the season, most projected the rookie of the Year race to be fairly hotly contested between Derrick Rose and Michael Beasley, the top two picks in the NBA draft. But it wasn't: while Beasley spent time learning to contribute coming off the bench, Rose became one of the leaders on a team that made its way back to the playoffs. As such, the young Bull was our unanimous choice for Rookie of the Year honors.

Here's how the voting shook out:

1. Derrick Rose
2. O.J. Mayo
3. Kevin Love

While Rose racked up all five of our first place votes, Mayo took home four of the five votes for second. Love received three third place votes.

Brook Lopez and Eric Gordon were the only other players to receive multiple votes, and Michael Beasley, Russell Westbrook, and Anthony Randolph were all named on one ballot each.

Love finished number one in PER for rookies that played over 20 minutes per game, and Beasley and Lopez had higher numbers than Rose in that statistical category as well. But Rose led all rookies in assists with an average of 6.3 per game, and finished second in scoring behind Mayo, with an average of 16.8.

Most importantly, Rose put up these numbers while playing meaningful basketball games down the stretch, as the Bulls were making their way towards the playoffs. That's why he gets the edge, and that's why he's likely to get an equally lopsided vote when the award is handed out for real in just a few short weeks.