Enes Kanter Should Be A Lock For Sixth Man Of The Year

We’re close enough to the end of the season to look to award season. As for the Sixth Man of the Year Award, Enes Kanter’s name should already be engraved on the trophy.

The NBA regular season will come to an end on Wednesday night, which is the cause for the avalanche of articles that have been coming in and will continue to come in until the playoffs start.

While the races for MVP and Rookie of the Year were wrapped up at least a month ago by Stephen Curry and Karl-Anthony Towns, respectively, the other awards seem to be pretty wide-open.

The award for Sixth Man of the Year falls in line with that line of thinking as an award without a consensus, but it shouldn’t be. Enes Kanter should be a lock by now, almost to the same level that Curry and Towns are locks in their award races.

Kanter is averaging 12.7 points on 57.5 percent shooting to go along with 8.1 rebounds per game while playing an extremely crucial part to the Oklahoma City Thunder, owners of the fourth-best record in the NBA at 55-27.

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Kanter has played only 21 minutes per game as a scoring and rebounding specialist. Kanter’s per 36 minute stats are 21.7 points and 13.9 rebounds per game. Per 100 possessions, the Thunder outscore opponents by 18 points with Kanter on the court.

In his lone start of the season, Kanter put up 33 points and 20 rebounds against the Trail Blazers. The Thunder, who were playing without Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook, and Serge Ibaka, may have lost the game, but they outscored the Blazers by 10 points when Kanter was on the floor.

Kanter has 24 double-doubles this season off the bench, more than twice as many as Tristan Thompson (11), who is second behind Kanter among players eligible for Sixth Man of the Year (Hassan Whiteside has 24 double-doubles off the bench, but hasn’t came off the bench enough this season to qualify) .

The knock on Kanter is that he is an all-offense, no-defense player. That designation is accurate, but that’s the reason why he’s coming off the bench. You’re not going to find many bench players without holes in their game. If they didn’t have weaknesses, they wouldn’t be coming off the bench to begin with.

Despite Kanter’s horrid defense, the Thunder are significantly better with him on the court, especially late in games.

Perhaps the reason that Kanter isn’t being mentioned as a favorite for the award is the history of smaller players typically winning the award.

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Since the NBA started handing out Sixth Man of the Year after the 1982-83 season, only two players who played center have won the award–Bill Walton in 1985-86 and Roy Tarpley in 1987-88.

Lamar Odom won the award in 2010-11 as a power forward, but recent history has rewarded shoot-first combo guards like Lou Williams, Jamal Crawford, J.R. Smith, Jason Terry, and Leandro Barbosa, all of whom have won the award since 2006-07.

Just because recent history has trended towards those players winning the award, that doesn’t make it right. The award should be given to the most productive player who primarily comes off of the bench regardless of position and Kanter has fit that bill this season.

The other candidates have arguments, but none nearly as strong as Kanter’s.

Jamal Crawford of the Los Angeles Clippers and Andre Iguodala of the Golden State Warriors are mentioned as the favorites for this award, but to put either above Kanter just defies logic.

Crawford, a two-time Sixth Man winner, is the prototypical sixth man. Crawford is a high usage, low efficiency player who excels at being the primary option of an offense but isn’t good enough to command the ball as a team’s number one option with the starters.

Crawford is averaging 14.2 points per game on 40.4 percent shooting from the field. The main argument for Crawford is that he stepped up in the absence of Blake Griffin and provided offense when the team needed him. That’s definitely true, highlighted by his 19.5 points per game in February, but Crawford simply hasn’t had the year that Kanter has.

Crawford is shooting just a hair over 40 percent for the season, a mark that he hovered below for much of the year. Crawford is known as a poor defender who contributes very little outside of his high volume scoring. With Crawford on the floor, the Clippers have actually been outscored by five points per 100 possessions.

Iguodala serves as a smart option for Sixth Man of the Year despite his less than remarkable per game averages of 7.1 points, 4.0 rebounds, and 3.3 assists.

Iguodala is mentioned in this category for having played very efficient basketball for the record-setting Warriors, who will go for an NBA record 73 wins on Wednesday night against the Memphis Grizzlies. His 48.1 percent field goal shooting and 35.8 percent shooting on three-pointers are both the second-best years in Iguodala’s 12-year NBA career.

Unlike Kanter and Crawford, Iguodala makes more of an impact defensively than offensively, showcased by his defense on LeBron James in last year’s NBA Finals that ended with Iguodala winning NBA Finals MVP.

In addition to his high efficiency and defensive ability, Iguodala brings an extra element to the Warriors with his ability to handle the ball. The extra ball-handler on the court allows the Warriors to give Curry and Klay Thompson a break from handling the ball to run around picks and create offense without the ball.

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It’s not tangible, but it’s a reason that the Warriors have had the success that they’ve had this season and intelligent NBA folks understand his importance.

The Warriors also outscore opponents by 10 points per 100 possessions when Iguodala is on the floor.

The weaknesses in Iguodala’s campaign for Sixth Man are his raw numbers and games missed. Iguodala missed 17 games this season, most of which with an ankle injury. Due to his injuries keeping him off the court or limiting his ability on the court, Iguodala hasn’t made more than two field goals in a game since February 27th.

If Iguodala had played in 75 games or so, it would be a much more interesting debate despite his pedestrian numbers.

However, Kanter has played in every game of the season thus far and his quality and quantity combine should easily catapult him over Iguodala and the rest of the competition for the award.

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Kanter is the right choice for Sixth Man of the Year and if he doesn’t win the award, then the voters simply got it wrong.