Cavaliers guard Kyrie Irving drove past defenders with ease all season.

It was no different in voting for rookie of the year.

Irving, who played beyond his years and above everyone’s expectations including his own, was chosen the NBA’s Rookie of the Year on Tuesday, winning an award he always believed was within reach.

”It was a goal of mine,” he said. ”I knew as long as we won some games and beat some great team that it was going to come.”

Irving received 117 of 120 possible first-place votes from a nationwide media panel of writers and broadcasters. Irving finished with 592 points, way ahead of Minnesota’s Ricky Rubio (170) and Denver’s Kenneth Faried (129). Faried, San Antonio’s Kawhi Leonard and New York’s Iman Shumpert received the other first-place votes, denying Irving’s bid to become the fourth player to win the award unanimously.

via Tom Withers of the Associated Press