Montrezl Harrell still atop NBA Sixth Man of the Year Ladder
By Phil Watson
In version 4.0 of our NBA Sixth Man of the Year Ladder, Montrezl Harrell of the LA Clippers still leads, but the rankings have gotten a shakeup.
We’ve arrived at the fourth iteration of our NBA Sixth Man of the Year Ladder, which looks the same on the top and bottom rungs from four weeks ago, but has otherwise undergone some major shifts.
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Four players fell out of consideration — two due to injuries which knocked them below the 72 percent of team games played threshold for eligibility and the other two due to falling to less than 20 minutes per game, the second of the three criteria.
The third checkmark needed to be on the Ladder is the big one, the qualification for the award itself, and that is playing in more than half of your games off the bench.
The 20-minute-per-game barrier took out one player who had been on the last ladder (seven players deep based on the average number of players receiving first-place votes over the last five seasons). Dwight Howard of the Los Angeles Lakers dropped off after being in the sixth rung on Jan. 25 as his playing time has dipped to 19.8 minutes a game.
The other player to fall completely off his rung was No. 4 Derrick Rose of the Detroit Pistons, who battled some injuries over the last month or so, while his scoring also fell off to 14.3 points per game over the six games in which he appeared. Rose missed six games during that period as well.
Rose’s dip in production coupled with Detroit’s free fall (the Pistons were 2-10 over the four-week span) caused a precipitous drop.
So there will be at least two new players on the ladder with some other shifts to account for as well.
Let’s start the climb.