Brooklyn Nets: Best candidates for 2018-19 NBA awards
By Amaar Burton
Sixth Man of the Year: Spencer Dinwiddie
Dinwiddie might be the best backup point guard in the NBA, which automatically makes him a viable candidate for Sixth Man of the Year.
The problem is that the Sixth Man award tends to go to shooting guards and wings who specialize in scoring more than playmaking. Think Jamal Crawford, Lou Williams and Eric Gordon.
Dinwiddie and Williams might be the only sixth men who are the second-best players on their respective teams (Williams is arguably the No. 1 player on the Los Angeles Clippers). Dinwiddie would be starting for the Nets if D’Angelo Russell wasn’t in place at point guard.
In 28 minutes per game last season, Dinwiddie averaged 12.6 points and a team-high 6.6 assists. He turned the ball over 1.6 times per game, while Russell committed 3.1 turnovers in his 25 minutes per game.
The only reason Dinwiddie wasn’t in the running for Sixth Man of the Year is that he started 58 games, thanks in large part to Russell missing about half the season with injuries.
Assuming he’s back to backup duty with a healthy Russell, another obstacle in Dinwiddie’s way is that the Nets aren’t good. Contributing to a winning team is always better for a Sixth Man of the Year candidate; good backups on bad teams can be dismissed as merely putting up meaningless numbers in losing efforts.
Odds: Pretty good, but the Nets need to win more