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Pop quiz: What rookie has the two highest single-game scoring totals this season?
Here's a hint, it's not Kevin Durant.
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Give up? It's OK, so do defenders when they're closing out on the perimeter and see Juan Carlos Navarro ready to unleash another 3-pointer.
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When Navarro has been hot this season, he's been hotter than any other rookie. He is the owner of the highest scoring output of any rookie so far this season, dropping in 28 points on two separate occasions. (Durant's high is 27 points.)
Nothing about him screams NBA rookie from his George Clooney eyebrows to his Jake Gyllenhaal five o'clock shadow to his Spanish birth certificate that was stamped in 1980.
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But an NBA rookie is what Juan Carlos Navarro is, make no mistake about it. And a good one at that.
Juan Carlos, or J.C., or "La Bomba" or whatever you want to call him moves up from the No. 9 spot in the Rookie Rankings last week to No. 7 this week after averaging 15.5 points per game and solidifying himself as the team's starting shooting guard as first-year head coach Marc Iavaroni has elected to go with a small ball lineup to maximize his shooters.
Juan Carlos, or J.C., or "La Bomba" or whatever you want to call him moves up from the No. 9 spot in the Rookie Rankings last week to No. 7 this week after averaging 15.5 points per game and solidifying himself as the team's starting shooting guard as first-year head coach Marc Iavaroni has elected to go with a small ball lineup to maximize his shooters.
Amongst those shooters is Mike Miller, a competitor in last season's All-Star 3-Point Shootout and a notorious longbomber. After the Grizzlies' 110-103 road win in New Jersey on Tuesday, Miller was quick to heap the marksmanship praise on Navarro and not himself, even though they both hit three 3-pointers.
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"I'm all reputation," Miller said. "He's a shooter, I'm not."
Navarro, who was drafted by the Wizards in the second round in 2002 before finally making it to the league five years later to play with his friend and countryman, Pau Gasol, isn't your typical rookie.
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"I don't know if you can consider him a rookie," Miller said. "He's played on national teams, he's played professionally for a while now ... he comes in here and he understands how to play and pressure really isn't an impact on his game."
Even his jersey number is misleading. He wears No. 2, but 61 of his 109 field goal attempts this season have been 3-pointers.
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Despite his proclivity for the trifecta, he's hardly a one-dimensional player. On Tuesday he wasn't shy about putting the ball on the floor and showcasing his Jeff Hornacek-like floater and you can't forget the 11 rebounds he hauled in while measuring just 6-3, 170 pounds.
After the game he told a member of the Memphis rublic relations staff that he once grabbed 19 rebounds in a game while playing in Europe.
"He's scrappy," said teammate Hakim Warrick. "They tried to post him up a couple times and he didn't back down. He's a fighter. When you see a little guy like that out there fighting against Vince Carter, that's all you can ask for. You know he's going to bring it at the other end."
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