The NBA is putting off award presentations until next week after the Donald Sterling revelations, but ESPN’s Marc Stein reports that Los Angeles Clippers guard Jamal Crawford has captured the NBA’s 2014 Sixth Man of the Year award.
By the way, league source says all @NBA awards were postponed this week because of Sterling controversy. Will resume next week.
— gary washburn (@GwashburnGlobe) April 29, 2014
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Story going online now: ESPN has learned that Clippers G Jamal Crawford is the NBA's Sixth Man Award winner for second time in his career
— Marc Stein (@ESPNSteinLine) April 30, 2014
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This is the second time Crawford has won the award in his career; he captured his first Sixth Man of the Year award with the Hawks during the 2009-10 season.
This year Crawford finished second in Dime’s voting for regular-season awards to Taj Gibson (the first one we’ve gotten wrong), but he’s still an excellent choice.
He averaged 18.6 points and 3.2 assists in 30 minutes of action. He also sported the second-highest PER of his career (first was that 2009-10 season) while shooting above 36 percent from beyond the arc, despite attempting more 3-pointers per game than ever before in his career.
We spoke with Crawford towards the end of the regular season and asked him about a possible second Sixth Man of the Year award. Here’s his humble answer:
“The thing about it is, you can’t even be mentioned for postseason awards if you’re not winning. You can’t be having a good season individually and your team’s not winning. That doesn’t even qualify you, so the team winning is more important than anything. And then having success — a pretty big role in that – they go hand-in-hand. So if you’re not winning, and my team needs me, I’ll play the part, but something like [Sixth Man of the Year] is not possible without your teammates and coaching staff putting you in that position. So I’ve always focused on team before postseason awards…We’re definitely trying to win, and if those things [awards] come along with it, we’ll take it.”
Is Jamal Crawford the NBA’s Sixth Man of the Year?
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