NBA Sixth Man Ladder: Familiar faces lead 1st look at top bench honor
By Phil Watson
In our first look this season at the early contenders for NBA Sixth Man of the Year, we find a mix of new faces and old standbys, but the top is familiar.
When it comes time to hand out the NBA honors sometime a couple of decades after the regular season wraps up (nope, still not a fan of the post-NBA Draft basketball Oscars show), the Sixth Man of the Year honor has almost exclusively rested within the purview of the scoring savants, the players that can come in and instantly start cooking at the offensive end.
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In the 37 years the NBA has awarded the Sixth Man of the Year, there have only been three winners who scored less than 10 points per game — Bobby Jones of the Philadelphia 76ers (9.0 PPG in 1982-83, the first year the award was handed out), Bill Walton of the Boston Celtics (7.6 PPG in 1985-86) and Anthony Mason of the New York Knicks (9.9 PPG in 1994-95).
So it’s been awhile since a bench player not known for offensive firepower has been the NBA Sixth Man of the Year. At the other end of the scale, there have been three winners who topped 20 points per game the year they won.
Eddie Johnson of the Phoenix Suns was the first when he averaged 21.5 points per game in 1988-89 and Ricky Pierce of the Milwaukee Bucks topped that with 23.0 points per game the next season — still the highest scoring average ever for an NBA Sixth Man of the Year.
Lou Williams of the LA Clippers, a three-time winner who has taken the trophy each of the last two seasons, is the other 20-point-a-game reserve, topping the mark each of the last two seasons — 22.6 PPG in 2017-18 and 20.0 PPG last year.
Williams is one of only three active players to have won the award. The others are Eric Gordon of the Houston Rockets (2016-17) and Rockets star James Harden, a winner with the Oklahoma City Thunder in 2011-12.
In determining how many players who be placed on the ladder, we looked at the last five years of voting results. An average of 7.2 players per year received first-place votes on the last five seasons’ worth of ballots, so the ladder for this season will go seven players deep.
That means close but no cookie for former MVP Derrick Rose of the Detroit Pistons, rejuvenated Dwight Howard of the Los Angeles Lakers, Tim Hardaway Jr. of the Dallas Mavericks, Rondae Hollis-Jefferson of the Toronto Raptors and Davis Bertans of the Washington Wizards — all solidly in contention, but trailing the group listed below.
Meanwhile, second-year sensation Devonte’ Graham became ineligible for the list by starting Friday night for the Charlotte Hornets in Detroit. Graham now has 10 starts in 20 games; the criteria for NBA Sixth Man of the Year is that a player come off the bench in more games than he starts.