By Eurohoops team/ info@eurohoops.net
Los Angeles Clippers forward Montrezl Harrell won the Sixth Man of the Year award for the 2019-2020 season. Harrell succeeds teammate Lou Williams (2018, 2019) and becomes the first non-guard to earn the award since Lamar Odom in 2011.
Harrell averaged 18.6 points, 7.1 rebounds and 1.7 assists in 27.8 minutes over 63 games in the 2019-2020 NBA regular season, coming off the bench in all matches but two. The Clippers finished second in the Western Conference with a league fourth-best 49 – 23.
Per the NBA: LA Clippers forward-center Montrezl Harrell has won the 2019-20 Kia NBA Sixth Man Award for his contributions in a reserve role, the NBA announced today. This is the first NBA Sixth Man Award for Harrell, who finished in third place last season.
Harrell received 58 first-place votes from a global panel of 100 sportswriters and broadcasters and earned 397 total points. Oklahoma City Thunder guard Dennis Schröder finished in second place with 328 points (35 first-place votes). Clippers guard Lou Williams, a three-time Kia NBA Sixth Man Award winner, received the other seven first-place votes and finished in third place with 127 points.
Players were awarded five points for each first-place vote, three points for each second-place vote and one point for each third-place vote. The voting was conducted based on regular-season games played through March 11. The seeding games, which were played July 30 – Aug. 14 as part of the season restart, did not count toward voting for the Kia NBA Sixth Man Award or the league’s other traditional end-of-season awards. To be eligible for the Sixth Man Award, players had to have come off the bench in more games than they started in games played through March 11.
From the beginning of the season through March 11, Harrell averaged 18.6 points, 7.1 rebounds and 1.14 blocked shots in 27.8 minutes in 63 games (two starts) as part of his fifth NBA season. In games played off the bench during that time, Harrell ranked second in the NBA in scoring (18.4 ppg) and fifth in rebounding (7.0 rpg). He also shot 58.0 percent from the field in all games played through March 11, the 10th-best mark in the NBA.
In games played off the bench through March 11, Harrell recorded an NBA-high 11 double-doubles, tied for first with four games of at least 30 points and ranked second with 10 games of 25 or more points. He scored 34 points off the bench twice, matching his single-game career high as a starter or reserve.
Led by Harrell and Williams, the Clippers averaged an NBA-high 51.5 points off the bench and outscored their opponents’ reserves in 53 of 64 games through March 11. LA posted a 44-20 record during that period, the second-best mark in the Western Conference.
Harrell, 26, has spent the last three seasons with the Clippers, who acquired him in a trade with the Houston Rockets in June 2017. He played his first two seasons with the Rockets after they selected him in the second round (No. 32 overall) of NBA Draft 2015 presented by State Farm.
This marks the third consecutive season and the fifth time in seven years that a member of the Clippers has received the Kia NBA Sixth Man Award. Williams won the award in each of the previous two seasons, and Jamal Crawford did so with the Clippers in the 2013-14 and 2015-16 seasons.
The voting results for the 2019-20 Kia NBA Sixth Man Award are below. The balloting was tabulated by the independent accounting firm of Ernst & Young LLP. Complete ballots for each voter will be posted at pr.nba.com after the announcement of all end-of-season awards.