The (Most Googled) Rookie of the Year

Gi.

All it takes is typing Gi for Google to suggest choosing between Girl Scout Cookies or Giannis Antetokounmpo.

Spelling the name in full is no longer necessary, Google knows me, Google knows Giannis.

He probably will not be the NBA Rookie of the Year, but Giannis Antetokounmpo is the most Googled Rookie of the Year.

Trending

The smart people at FiveThirtyEight recently pulled together charts comparing relative popularity of sports teams based on Google searches.

Over the past 10 years, the Lakers lead the NBA, the Bucks are last.

Of course, this is hardly a conclusive measurement of popularity. You could choose number of search results or number of news stories written or jersey sales or attendance numbers or so many other factors. Number of Google searches is just one way of looking at this, but it is an interesting angle.

In any event. The most popular rookie in the game should hopefully help the Bucks rise in Google ways and winning ways in the next 10 years or so.

Rookies

Antetokounmpo is the most popular Google search among all rookies in 2014 via Google Trends. (Note: I realize we are only four months into 2014, but that is where we are. I also realize Giannis being the most popular rookie is not a surprise, and that is where we are.) If we go back to the start of the season, Anthony Bennett (for positive reasons or negative) had a slight edge, but that changed rather soon after people actually started to watch the games.

The chart below ranks the top 20 rookies. All bars in the chart are relative to Antetokounmpo, so the exact number assigned is not as important as the range.

Bucks

The most popular Google rookie of 2014 is also the most popular Google Bucks player of 2014.

He is catching on fast stateside, but Antetokounmpo has received far more search love in Greece (more than seven times as much) than anywhere else so far. The international flavor is welcome, it is always fun to think about people staying up and waking up at odd hours of the day and night to follow the Milwaukee Bucks.

Also: In December 2013, for the first time in world history, Giannis Antetokounmpo tied Girl Scout Cookies in Google search popularity.