Not by a long shot. Off the top of my head I can think of four rookies who are producing at a greater rate than Mayo. If that's the case, why did Head 2 Head sports say yesterday, "Very few rookies in the history of the league have been as impressive as Mayo has been this season."

Simple. He scores more points per game than any other rookie. However, that stat is meaningless. Take more shots, score more points. What is important is how efficiently those points are scored.

In addition, there are many other factors other than scoring that affect the outcome of games. No, I'm not talking about "intangibles" (I hate that word). I'm talking about the box score.

Mayo shoots 45%. That's not good. Plus he takes a ton of shots, so that's not helping his team win, either. He's turnover prone and surprisingly doesn't generate many steals for a supposedly quick young guard. He rebounds relatively well, though.

All in all it adds up to merely average production for a SG (as calculated via Win Produced per 48 minutes). I should add that this is better than expected for Mayo, who was a below average performer in college. So perhaps he will become above average in future years.

I mentioned that there are at least four rookies with better production. Let's talk about one who was a second-round pick. Let's talk about Mario Chalmers.

A quick look at their efficiency stats (shooting) will show you that Mario is a worse shooter than Mayo (Chalmers is at 41%). However, Chalmers takes far fewer shots than Mayo, so ultimately he 'hurts his team less'.

Now let's move on to possession factors: rebounds, steals, blocks and turnovers. Chalmers lags a bit behind Mayo in rebounds per 48 minutes, but is a beast when it comes to steals (he's near the top of the league). Blocks are a wash, but Chalmers bests Mayo again in the turnover department, despite being a PG and thus, in theory, handling the ball more. (Even if he doesn't actually handle the ball more than Mayo, Chalmers still manages to get far more assists).

All told, Chalmers is a more valuable player in terms of gaining possessions for his team. He commits more fouls than Mayo, but this is more than offset by his superior assist total.

So, in non-scoring aspects Chalmers is much better than Mayo per 48 minutes. Mayo is the better shooter, but it's all relative - he's still not a great shooter, and Chalmers limits the damage caused by his inefficient shooting by not taking too many shots. In the end, Chalmers produces more wins per 48 minutes than Mayo.

Since the point of basketball is to wins games (not score points), I'd vote for Chalmers for MVP over Mayo any day.

I should also point out - Chalmers' production is not a surprise. Take a look at his college numbers. They were remarkably good, and consistent, for all three of his Kansas years. Due to his consistency I proclaimed him a sure bet in the NBA, and he has delivered (I wish I was doing this blog then, that would have been nice to have for posterity). So why was he taken in the second round?

Scoring. It's just plain overvalued. Enormously.