NBA: Kings' Evans named Rookie of the Year

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Tyreke Evans has won hundreds of trophies in his young basketball career and many of them seem to have lost an arm, a basketball or some other piece in his mother's care.

Bonita Evans will have to wait to get the NBA Rookie of the Year trophy Evans won Thursday until some safeguards are in place in the home he is building her in Delaware.

"She's broken too many," Evans said. "I probably have 400 trophies and about a hundred of them broke. I'd come downstairs and she'd try to glue them back together but it was too late. I didn't care about it. But the main important trophies, we're going to put them in a glass case for her."

Evans capped his fabulous rookie year for the Sacramento Kings by beating out Golden State's Stephen Curry and Milwaukee's Brandon Jennings for the coveted award.

Evans became the fourth rookie ever to average at least 20 points, five rebounds and five assists per game, joining Oscar Robertson, Michael Jordan and LeBron James in an exclusive club.

"This is one of the awards I had a goal of since I came into the NBA, being rookie of the year," Evans said. "I'm proud it came true. It was one of my dreams since I was little. I finally had a chance for my dream to come true."

Evans was the fourth pick in last year's NBA draft after spending one season at Memphis. Like Chicago's Derrick Rose a year ago, that one year at Memphis was enough to make him Rookie of the Year.

He led all rookies in scoring at 20.1 points per game, was second in assists at 5.8 per game and fifth in rebounds at 5.3.

"After maybe the first week or two in the regular season, the level of consistency that he settled into was just remarkable given his age and one year of experience in college," Kings president of basketball operations Geoff Petrie said. "It was just fun to watch it all unfold."

Evans was the only rookie to appear on all 123 ballots from a media panel, getting 67 first-place votes and 491 total points. Curry was second with 43 first-place votes and 391 points, with Jennings getting 12 first-place votes and 204 points. Players were awarded five points for a first-place vote, three for a second and one for a third.

While Jennings got off to a fast start, scoring 55 points in his seventh career game, and Curry finished the season with a flourish, Evans was consistently strong all season long.