Jamal Crawford is the quintessential gunner off the bench — he comes in firing away. He puts up numbers — 14.2 points per game this season — and doesn’t worry about efficiency (52.9 percent true shooting percentage, right about the league average) or defense. He is there to change the tempo and flow of the game by firing away — and when he is hitting the Clippers tend to win.
That’s what the media voters apparently want in their Sixth Man of the Year.
Crawford has been named the Sixth Man for a record third time in his career. At age 36 he is also the oldest player ever to win the award — breaking his own record of two seasons ago.
“It’s remarkable because (Crawford) is still an elite scorer, he basically beat us last game,” Portland coach Terry Stotts said before his team tipped off against the L.A. Clippers in the first round of the playoffs. “He does not look like he’s slowing down at all, and you forget that he’s 36. He’s got a live body, makes clutch shots, and wins games for (the Clippers).”
Andre Iguodala of the Golden State Warriors came in second, Enes Kanter of the Oklahoma City Thunder finished third. Iguodala and Manu Ginobili of the Spurs had seemed the frontrunners for the award midway through the season but both suffered injuries that kept them out for extended periods, and that hurt their candidacies.
Crawford got 51 of the 130 first-place votes from a panel of media members (the ballots for this award are three deep and the players get points for where they finished on the ballot). Here is the final complete order of finish (with first place votes in parenthesis).
Jamal Crawford, L.A. Clippers (51)
Andre Iguodala, Golden State (33)
Enes Kanter, Oklahoma City (19)
Will Barton, Denver (15)
Evan Turner, Boston (3)
Ryan Anderson, New Orleans (4)
Jeremy Lin, Charlotte (1)
Ed Davis, Portland (1)
Dennis Schröder, Atlanta (1)
Tristan Thompson, Cleveland (2)
Shaun Livingston, Golden State
J.J. Barea, Dallas
Boris Diaw, San Antonio
Zach LaVine, Minnesota
Darren Collison, Sacramento
Allen Crabbe, Portland
Jrue Holiday, New Orleans
Patrick Patterson, Toronto
Mirza Teletovic, Phoenix
