Ben Simmons wasn’t the only Sixer to walk out of Monday’s NBA awards ceremony with a trophy.
Teammate Amir Johnson became the second-ever recipient of the league’s Hustle award.
“This is definitely an honor,” Johnson said. “I pride myself on doing the little things on the court and I just want to say thank you to my teammates and coaches. This award means a lot.”
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The Hustle award is given to the NBA player with the highest aggregate hustle score each year. The score is calculated on:
• Players who played a minimum of 50 regular season games and at least 15 minutes per game.
• Five hustle stats: screen assists, deflections, loose balls recovered, charges drawn and shot contests.
• Players were compared by position (G/F/C) within each statistic on a per-minute basis.
NBA
• Within each statistic, a metric was calculated for each player based on his relative performance.
Johnson, in his 14th season overall and first as a Sixer, averaged 2.5 screen assists, 1.0 deflections, 0.7 loose balls recovered, 0.08 charges drawn and 5.5 contested shots per game. He added 4.6 points and 4.5 rebounds a night as the team's primary reserve big man.
The veteran beat out Indiana’s Thaddeus Young, Cleveland’s Larry Nance Jr., Simmons and Anthony Davis to claim the award.
“Amir Johnson is a true professional and meant so much to our team and locker room this past season,” Sixers head coach and interim general manager Brett Brown said in a statement. “His work ethic and grit had a significant positive impact on our program and culture, and I couldn’t be happier that he’s been recognized with this award.”
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