NBA Rookie of the Year: The 5 players to win the award unanimously
The NBA has seen some of the best players to ever step foot on the hardwood enter the league and have strong rookie campaigns straight out of the gate over the years.
But, only five players have ever unanimously won Rookie of the Year.
The award has been given to the top first-year player since the 1952-53 season when Don Meineke of the Fort Wayne Pistons won. Thirty of the non-active winners have been inducted into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame and 22 were drafted with the No. 1 pick in the NBA draft.
The winners are selected by a global panel of sportswriters and broadcasters. The voters submit ballots with three players — first place (five points), second place (three points) and third place (one point) — and the player with the highest point total is the winner.
There have been several players that have come close to winning unanimously, like Ja Morant in 2020 (99 first-place votes) or even this year with Paolo Banchero (98 first-place votes), but only five have received every first-place vote.
Here are the players to have won Rookie of the Year unanimously.
1983-84: Ralph Sampson, Houston Rockets
Stats: 21 points, 11.1 rebounds, 2.4 blocks, 2 assists
Sampson was the No. 1 pick in 1983 and the eventual Rookie of the Year winner after receiving all 76 votes. The Hall of Famer made the first of his four All-Star appearances that season and is one of 45 players to earn that distinction as a rookie.
1989-90: David Robinson, San Antonio Spurs
Stats: 24.3 points, 12 rebounds, 3.9 blocks, 2 assists, 1.7 steals
Like Sampson, Robinson was the first overall pick and earned the first of his 10 All-Star appearances as a rookie. He captured all 92 votes that year to win Rookie of the Year unanimously. Robinson was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2009 and is a member of the 50th and 75th-anniversary teams, respectively.
2010-11: Blake Griffin, LA Clippers
Stats: 22.5 points, 12.1 rebounds, 3.8 assists
Griffin was the next player to win Rookie of the Year unanimously some 21 years after Robinson. He garnered all 118 votes that year to win and was the last rookie to be named to the All-Star Game. Griffin even received MVP votes that season.
2012-13: Damian Lillard, Portland Trail Blazers
Stats: 19 points, 6.5 assists, 3.1 rebounds
Lillard topped the likes of Anthony Davis and Bradley Beal to win Rookie of the Year in 2013, earning all 121 first-place votes. He became the fourth player in team history to win and even set the then-NBA rookie record with 185 3-pointers.
2015-16: Karl-Anthony Towns, Minnesota Timberwolves
Stats: 18.3 points, 10.5 rebounds, 2 assists, 1.7 blocks
Towns received all 130 first-place votes in 2016 to win and was the last player to win Rookie of the Year unanimously. He set franchise rookie records in scoring, rebounding, blocked shots and field goal percentage (54.2).
