Stoudemire Wins 2002-03 ‘got milk?’ NBA Rookie of the Year Award

Posted: April 24, 2003

Phoenix Suns forward Amaré Stoudemire was named the 2002-03 got milk? NBA Rookie of the Year. The 6-10 forward is the youngest winner in the award’s history and is the third Suns player to win the honor, along with Walter Davis in 1977-78 and Alvan Adams in 1975-76.

Stoudemire received 458 points – including 59 of a possible 117 first-place votes from a panel of sportswriters and broadcasters throughout the United States and Canada – to earn the Eddie Gottlieb Trophy as the league’s top rookie. 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. Houston’s Yao Ming finished second with 405 points and Miami’s Caron Butler was third with 179 points.

The ninth selection in the 2002 NBA Draft, Stoudemire is only the third Rookie of the Year since 1964-65 to be chosen after the seventh pick. New York’s Mark Jackson gained the 1987-88 honor after being selected 18th and Golden State’s Jamaal Wilkes was the 11th choice before winning the 1974-75 award.

The 20-year old Stoudemire averaged 13.5 points, 8.8 rebounds (3.0 offensive), .472 shooting from the field, 1.06 blocks, 0.76 steals and 31.3 minutes while starting 71 of the 82 games in which he played this season. He finished the season ranked seventh in the NBA in offensive rebounds, 12th in rebounds, 26th in field goal percentage and 18th in double-doubles (25). In addition, he finished ninth in the NBA Crunch Time Stat for all-around performance in the game’s final two minutes and overtime.

Among first-year players, Stoudemire ranked first in rebounds, free throws made (320) and free throws attempted (484), second in points, blocks and minutes and fourth in field goal percentage. He is the first player to win the Rookie of the Year Award after entering the NBA directly from high school and his points and rebounds averages were the best in NBA history by a player going directly from high school to the NBA.

During the season he set the NBA mark for most points by a rookie directly from high school with 38 points on Dec. 30 at Minnesota, a total that was two points shy of Davis’ Suns rookie record of 40 points. Stoudemire also grabbed a Suns rookie-record 21 rebounds against Memphis on Jan. 10 for the most rebounds by a Sun since March 24, 1995. Both of those efforts were tops among rookies in 2002-03.

Stoudemire was named the Western Conference got milk? Rookie of the Month for January and April, only the third player in Suns history to earn the honor. Over the All-Star Weekend he scored 18 points and seven rebounds for the first-year players in the Schick Rookie Challenge and also participated in the Slam Dunk Contest.

Phoenix qualified for the playoffs this season and had the fourth-best record improvement in the NBA over last season – best among playoff teams. In his first-ever playoff game, Stoudemire scored 24 points, including a three-pointer at the end of regulation to send the game to overtime, and grabbed nine rebounds in Phoenix’s 96-95 Game 1 win at top-seeded San Antonio. Stoudemire is just the fourth Rookie of the Year in the last 13 seasons to play for a playoff team.

Stoudemire is the ninth member of the Suns franchise to win a major NBA postseason award. Along with the three Rookie of the Year honors, Phoenix had one Most Valuable Player (Charles Barkley in 1992-93), one Coach of the Year (Cotton Fitzsimmons in 1988-89), one Most Improved Player (Kevin Johnson in 1988-89) and three Sixth Man of the Year winners (Eddie Johnson in 1988-89; Danny Manning in 1997-98; Rodney Rogers in 1999-2000).

Stoudemire was presented his award today by Suns Chairman and CEO Jerry Colangelo. He will be officially be presented with the Eddie Gottlieb Trophy before Friday night’s Game 3 of the Suns-Spurs first round playoff series by NBA Deputy Commissioner Russ Granik and Mike Krueger, Milk Processors Education Program Board Member, presenting on behalf of America’s Milk Processors Education Program.

The Eddie Gottlieb Trophy is named in honor of Eddie Gottlieb, one of the NBA’s founders who coached the Philadelphia Warriors to the NBA championship in 1946-47.

The got milk? Milk Mustache campaign is sponsoring the NBA Rookie platform to highlight the importance of milk’s bone-building calcium and eight other essential nutrients for active people, teen boys especially, who add about 15 percent of their height during these years. The platform includes the ‘got milk?’ Rookie Challenge, the ‘got milk?’ Rookie of the Month awards, the ‘got milk?’ Rookie of the Year award and the ‘got milk?’ All-Rookie Team.

Following are the voting results for this year’s got milk? NBA Rookie of the Year Award and the all-time list of winners: