Sixth Man, Schmixth Man

I was born in 1982, so I have an innate connection to anything that was founded during that glorious year. Unfortunately for the legacy of my birth year, the NBA 6th Man of the Year Award was started during the 1982-1983 season. Maybe some of you do not think this is unfortunate, but you’re wrong. It is because this award is stupid. Not convinced? Then let us go for a walk.

Although I cannot find it anywhere, I believe the league had good intentions with this award. I bet they thought it would be nice to give an award to a player who was not a star, but was able to make a difference in his team’s success. Kind of like your team mom bringing treats for the entire team at the end of a little league game. Professional athletes need orange slices and squeeze-its so they can feel appreciated too. (The not so altruistic theory: the league thought it was a tool coaches could use to coax good players into coming off the bench.) But if this was the motivation behind creating this award, the league screwed it up pretty quickly.

In the inaugural year of the award Bobby Jones won. Who is Bobby Jones? A four time NBA All-Star, that’s who. It seems strange to have an award seemingly designed to award a non-star to go to a multiple time All-Star. Want to know who won it the next two years? Seven time All-Star and Hall of Famer Kevin McHale. In fact, of the 25 guys who have won the award, 11 of them played in All-Star games. And then you had players like Toni Kukoc who never made an All-Star team, but once averaged over 18 ppg, 5 apg, and 7 rpg. What I am saying is, simply coming off the bench is a lame distinction to use in giving out an award. It makes is easy to determine who is eligible, but it doesn’t really mean anything.

This is not to say that non-stars are unimportant. We all know it is quite the opposite. And the 6th Man Award has gone to some good non-stars like Eddie Johnson and Dell Curry. In fact, between the ‘98-‘99 season and the ‘02-‘03 season, it looked like the award was serving its purpose. Guys like Darrell Armstrong, Aaron McKie, and Bobby Jackson won. But then the Mavericks had to come along and screw it up.

They had Antawn Jamison, a two time All-Star who has averaged more than 20 ppg five different seasons in his career, coming off the bench. Jamison was one of two Mavs to play all 82 games, but only started two of them. That year, Shawn Bradley and Eduardo Najera both started more games than Jamison did. Now I understand the strategy in having a guy like Jamison come off the bench, so you can’t actually blame Don Nelson and the Mavs for screwing up the award (I will find something else to blame on Mark Cuban later). A lot of teams have decided to go the same route in recent years and the results can be seen in the winners of the 6th Man Award with guys like Manu Ginobili and Jason Terry (Mavs again!) winning it. But doesn’t this make the award pretty meaningless again? Shouldn’t there be an adjustment so we can honor someone who is a non-star, but still makes his team better? And what should this award be called? I present to you the O.G. Award.

(What does O.G. mean? I’m glad you asked. I hate the term role player. Everyone on a team has a role. Even superstars have roles. No one player can do everything, so technically, everyone has a role. Some are bigger than others (no Trevor, I am not calling you fat), but everyone has a role. Also, I hate the term specialist. Just about everyone is a specialist too. Dwight Howard plays defense, Kevin Durant scores, and Rajon Rondo certainly isn’t on the court to shoot the ball. There are a few guys who seem to be able to do a little bit of everything, but isn’t that their specialty? And there are only a few guys ever who could do everything well and were not specialists (i.e. Oscar and LeBron). Because of my disgust towards these terms, I started thinking of other words we could use to describe someone like Shane Battier. It came down to “extras” or “other guys”. I went with “other guys” or O.G. cause it has street cred and I need to rep my ‘hood.)

The O.G. award has some guidelines and they are not as cut and dried as, “the player must come off the bench to be eligible for this inane award”. First, this player cannot be an All-Star. Not now, not ever. If you become an All-Star at any point in your career, you rescind your O.G. status. Frankly, we all have a pretty good idea of who has All-Star potential and who does not. This rule is to make sure that guys like Manu and Jet are not stealing the O.G. Award.

Second, you cannot be one of your team’s best three or four players. This means that someone like Lamar Odom (this year’s version, not the candy-eating, inconsistent dude from the last few years) would not be eligible, but Derek Fisher, Shannon Brown, or Matt Barnes would be. Yes this guideline means the team you are on matters. On a bad team, some “other guys” may be the third best player and that means that cannot win the award that year. However unfair, let’s not pretend the quality of your team doesn’t play into the allocation of other awards (i.e. MVP). We’re simply staying consistent in our biases.

Lastly, when you are on the bench you must cheer like Temple Grandin at a petting zoo. Who doesn’t love the guy who jumps off the bench when his team makes a big play or comes running out to do a flying chest bump with his teammate when the other team takes a timeout? This is a must-have quality of a true O.G.

So, who are some of the best O.Gs. ever? Robert Horry is probably the prototypical O.G. He never averaged more than 12 ppg, but he won 7 rings. Guys like Bruce Bowen, Steve Kerr, and Derek Fisher would be in the all-time discussion too. The last five or six years’ best O.Gs. are guys like Shane Battier, Tayshaun Prince, and James Posey. Players like Glen Davis, Mickael Pietrus, and Andy Varejao currently wear those shoes. Ultimately, I guess my hope is to make 2010 less unfortunate than 1982 in the world of NBA Awards. That way, my kid will have a birth year legacy that isn’t so useless.