Paolo Banchero is voted NBA rookie of the year

There were no surprises in the NBA rookie of the year pick.

Paolo Banchero, Italian-American power forward for the Orlando Magic, started as a favorite for this award since he was chosen number 1 in the last

.

His numbers (20 points, 6.9 rebounds and 3.7 assists per game) endorse him as the

of the year.

In second place was Walker Kessler, from the Utah Jazz;

while Jalen Williams, of the Oklahoma City Thunder, has been third.

The result of the vote was forceful.

Banchero was chosen by 98 of the 100 representatives of the media in first position, taking 494 points out of 500 possible.

Paolo Banchero's 2022-23 Kia NBA Rookie of the Year mixtape 📹#KiaROY |

#NBAAwards |

@Kia pic.twitter.com/PTmXHOu5yN

— NBA (@NBA) April 25, 2023

In his first year in the NBA, the power forward was the leader of the Orlando franchise, which finished third from last in the Eastern Conference, far from the

with a very young squad.

He exceeded 20 points 40 times and added more than 30 points six times.

He is the third Magic player to win rookie of the year, after Shaquille O'Neal (1993) and Mike Miller (2001).

Precisely the latter is Banchero's agent.

Banchero's adolescence was marked by a dilemma.

Before finally deciding on basketball, he combined it with American football.

In fact, when he was in the eighth grade, at age 14, he was selected as one of the top 50 players his age in both sports.

At the age of 13, he was already almost 2 meters tall.

Apart from American football, the awards were not long in coming on the basketball courts and he chose Duke (in North Carolina), a college basketball classic, where Kyrie Irving, Seth Curry, Jayson Tatum and Zion Williamson played.

His progression seems unstoppable after being chosen

of the year, an award that marks the career of a player in the NBA and that has been held by players of the stature of Michael Jordan, LeBron James, Kevin Durant or Luka Doncic, among others.

The mystery of the national team

Banchero was born 20 years ago in Seattle (United States), although his father is Italian-American.

Despite the fact that he has never been to the transalpine country, he obtained an Italian passport in the summer of 2020 and has always expressed his desire to play with the

He was 17 years old at the time, so if he played with Italy, he would do it as a national.

According to FIBA ​​regulations, for a player not to count as naturalized he must have been naturalized before the age of 16.

But something seemed to go wrong in 2022 when after being chosen number 1 in the

, it seemed that he would debut with Italy in the Eurobasket last summer.

But it was not like that, the coach Gianmarco Pozzecco did not include him in the pre-selection and the relationship between Banchero and the

cooled .

A few weeks ago, in a chat with

, he dropped the possibility that he might decide for the United States in the future.

"I do not know yet.

It's something they ask me all the time."

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