Some shakeups on Sixth Man of the Year Ladder 2.0; Montrezl Harrell still leads
By Phil Watson
The race for Sixth Man of the Year changed over the last 3 weeks, with version 2.0 of our Ladder inhabited by 4 players that weren’t on a rung before.
When we looked at the Sixth Man of the Year race the first time three weeks ago, the seven-player list bore only a passing resemblance to what has shaken out in version 2.0 of our Sixth Man of the Year Ladder.
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For starters, four of the players on the list three weeks ago are not on it anymore. Goran Dragic of the Miami Heat has not played in 72 percent of his team’s games, which is the smallest percentage played by any past winner (Ricky Pierce of the Milwaukee Bucks in 1989-90 and 2002-03 winner Bobby Jackson of the Sacramento Kings each played in 59 games).
Spencer DInwiddie of the Brooklyn Nets was disqualified because he’s now started more than half the games he’s played. Bogdan Bogdanovic of the Kings and Tyler Herro of the Heat simply fell off the list.
The NBA’s criteria for eligibility is that a player has to appear in more than half of his appearances as a reserve. On the Ladder, we’ve added the 72 percent rule to create a floor for games played and established 20 minutes per game as a minimum standard (Bill Walton of the Boston Celtics in 1985-86 is the only Sixth Man of the Year winner to average less than 20 minutes a game).
Because the average number of players receiving first-place voters over the last five seasons is 7.2, the ladder contains seven players. Just missing the cut were rookie Brandon Clarke of the Memphis Grizzlies, Dennis Schroder of the Oklahoma City Thunder and Delon Wright of the Dallas Mavericks.
With all the caveats out of the way, let’s jump into version 2.0 of the Sixth Man of the Year Ladder.