Sacramento Kings: 3 bold predictions for 2018-19 NBA season

3. Buddy Hield be a Sixth Man of the Year finalist

It seems like this year, the NBA season awards are harder than ever to predict. Each award has multiple quality candidates that could be fair winners.

The candidate pool for the Sixth Man of the Year is no different. J.J. Redick, Lou Williams, Tyreke Evans, Dennis Schroder, Kyle Kuzma and Julius Randle are all sixth men who will greatly help their teams this season in different ways.

As you can tell, Buddy Hield isn’t on that list… yet.

When it comes to winning this award, points per game is king. The last three winners of the award (Lou Williams, Eric Gordon, Jamal Crawford) were all high-volume shooters from the wing who averaged at least 14 points per game off the bench.

Buddy Hield is entering his third season in the NBA, which is usually when players make their biggest leaps. Hield averaged 13.5 points and 2.2 3-pointers per game last season and those numbers will likely leap up after becoming the primary scorer off the bench. If Hield remains healthy this season, he will enter the Sixth Man of the Year conversation by All-Star break.