Rudy's first three games

I intended to throw all of this in the Weakend Review but it just didn't feel right. The first three games of the Rudy Fernandez Trailblazer experience deserve a standalone post. So far the hype seems to be right, the man has been awesome.

Coming off the bench and averaging 27 minutes a game, Rudy has been impressive statistically. His PER is good for twentieth best in the NBA. You can't put too much stock in early season stats (Walter Herrmann currently leads the league in PER, after all) but you have to appreciate this a little. He has the highest PER on the team, and the second highest of any rookie.

Rudy has shot the ball very well so far (48% FG, 40% from three). His only game shooting less than 50% was against San Antonio, when he made just one of his six shot attempts. With his shot not falling, Rudy still made an impact. He grabbed eight rebounds, four of them offensive. It evokes the old basketball adage, a good player finds other ways to contribute when his shot is not falling.

And if you only care about highlights, he has put up a good one of those as well. And his NBA.com widget picture is one of those trippy negative images. That has to be worth something:



If Rudy manages to maintain his performance somewhere near this level, teams will begin considering him in defensive schemes. How he will respond to special attention is still unknown. We also have that rookie-wall thing to keep an eye on. It is way to early for any conclusions, but it could get hard to hold back the love fest. Maybe we should just start the Rudy for Sixth Man/Rookie of the Year campaign.