NBA Awards 2019: 3 reasons why Domantas Sabonis should win the Sixth Man of the Year award

The 2019 NBA Finals are complete and so to now is the 2019 NBA Draft. The last piece of business that the NBA has to address before the 2018-19 NBA season is fully in the past is award night. On Monday, June 24th, 2019 the world discovers which star players shined brightest this past season.

One of those awards will be the Sixth Man of the Year award. In 2019, the finalists for this award are Montrezl Harrell, Lou Williams (both of the L.A. Clippers), and Domantas Sabonis (Indiana Pacers). Lou Williams is a 2-time winner of this award and is actually the reigning 6th man of the year from 2018. It is conceivable he could win his third and 2nd straight accolade in this category. However, he does have stiff competition from his teammate Harrell and Indiana’s 3rd year back up center Domantas Sabonis. Here are three reasons Domantas Sabonis should win the 2019 NBA Sixth Man of the Year award:

Overall Game Impact

Boston Celtics v Indiana Pacers - Game Four

The other two nominees for the Sixth Man of the Year award in 2019 play for the Clippers and have scored for them as well. Lou Williams has been lighting up scoreboards across the NBA for years with his array of offensive talents coming off the bench for teams like Philadelphia, Atlanta, Toronto, and Los Angeles Clippers. It's this very reason he won the Sixth Man of the Year award last year and in 2015. Montrezl Harrell like Sabonis is a young and upcoming player and they both could have also been nominees for the Most Improved Player of the year.

In the case of the two Clippers vying for the 6th man award, they would seem to have more attractive numbers. Williams scored 20 ppg and averaged 5.4 apg while Harrell scored 16.6 ppg and averaged 6.5 rpg. If you are simply taking scoring into account then Lou Williams wins the 6th man of the year award. However, even though Sabonis only averaged 14.1 ppg, 9.3 rpg, and 2.9 apg, from the center position, his impact on the game is greater.

For example, Lou Williams and Montrezl Harrell played on average 26.6mpg and 26.3mpg respectively. Sabonis produced a near double-double in just 24.8mpg. Sabonis was not even the most relied upon substitute for the Pacers in terms of minutes played yet he was their bench’s most reliable and productive player. Sabonis has a more complete game than his competition for the 6th Man award.

Both the Clippers and Pacers had identical records at 48-34 in 2019. Both teams made the playoffs. The Pacers were the 5th seed in the East and the Clippers were the 8th seed out West. The Clippers traded their best player mid-season in Tobias Harris. The Pacers lost Victor Oladipo, their best player to injury mid-season. It can be argued that the Pacers were the better team so Sabonis’ lower scoring average could be attributed to that.

The one difference between these two teams in 2018-19 was that the Pacers were 22nd in scoring whereas the Clippers were 5th (115ppg) in the association. Therefore, Sabonis' 14ppg were more important to the overall success of his team as the Pacers struggled to score but did out pace opponents 108-104 in scoring per game.

Defensive Impact

In judging who is the better player or who should win awards, most people always take the offensive statistical categories of proof of one player’s greatness over another. Basketball is a transitional game and defensive play is just as important as offense. In this regard, Sabonis is again the better 6th man.

Harrell, for example, averaged 6.5rpg but 2 of that number came at the offensive end. Sabonis, who averaged 9.3rpg grabbed 2.5 of them on the offensive glass, still averaged more defensive rebounds per game than Harrell. Both Sabonis and Harrell play the same position (Harrell plays some power forward too).

Lou Williams is always admired for his offense but he is a liability defensively. Harrell and Sabonis are both big men but averaged .9 and .6spg (steals) in 2018-19. Lou Williams only managed an average of .8spg on 57 total steals. Harrell had more steals than Williams at 71 in 82 games and Williams had just 9 steals (57) more than Sabonis (48).

Based on advanced stats, Sabonis produced a steal 1.3% of the time he was on the floor exactly the same as Williams who is a guard.

Sabonis’ defense provides the Pacers with victory 3.3% of the time while Harrell is at 2.6% and Williams is at 1.2%. Defensively, Sabonis is the strongest player of the three nominated for the 6th man of the year award.

Super Sub

Domantas Sabonis was an outstanding contributor off of the Indiana Pacer’s bench in 2018-19. It's not just that the stats are impressive or that he was better than reliable at both ends of the floor. He set a couple of records for bench players this past season. First, he played in 74 games and had 30 double-doubles, 27 of which came as a substitute. This is the most double-doubles ever recorded in the NBA by a reserve player.

As mentioned earlier, not only was Sabonis on the court less than his competition for the 6th man award, several of his teammates in Indiana who also came off the bench played more than he did. However, he maximized his time on the floor and with just 9.5 field goal attempts per game he set an Indiana Pacers record for field goal percentage at 59%. He was an accurate scorer and he was positively involved in Indiana’s successes and failures in 2018-19.

Ultimately, without being the most dominant scorer off of the bench, Domantas Sabonis has an extremely strong case to be the 6th man of the year award winner in 2019.

Edited by Ribhu .