On Monday night, LA Clippers guard Lou Williams was named the 2018-2019 Sixth Man of the Year, beating out Montrezl Harrell and Domantas Sabonis en route to his third award.
LA Clippers fans have known it was coming for a long time, and now it’s officially official: Lou Williams has been named Sixth Man of the Year for the 2018-2019 season, topping Domantas Sabonis and teammate Montrezl Harrell.
The award is Williams’ third, tying him with former Clippers guard Jamal Crawford for the most all-time. Both Williams and Crawford won two of their three respective awards with the Clippers, all of which have come within the last six seasons.
Williams winning the award isn’t exactly a surprise. He took home the honor easily in 2018 by averaging career-high marks of 22.6 points and 5.3 assists per game, and he was arguably better this past season. His numbers weren’t as gaudy, but he was far more efficient, averaging 20.0 points and 5.4 assists in just 26.6 minutes per contest.
In addition to that, Williams overtook Dell Curry this past season for first all-time in points scored off the bench — making him the most prolific scoring sixth man in NBA history.
Williams scored at least 20 points in 38 games this past season, and from December 23 through the rest of the regular season, he scored at least 10 points in every game. A lot of his games could be considered his “best” of the year, but of them all, his 31-point triple-double stands out from the crowd. It was the first triple-double of the 6’1″ guard’s career, and he joined Detlef Schrempf as the only other player to record a 30-point triple-double off the bench in league history.
Despite essentially being a shoo-in for the award, Williams faced some very stiff competition during this last campaign. Both Harrell and Sabonis had very strong seasons, and for the first half of the season, the honor seemed like it was any of theirs to win.
Harrell, who just turned 25 this season, averaged career-high marks across the board. His 16.6 points, 6.5 rebounds, 2.0 assists and 1.3 blocks per game were all the highest he’s averaged throughout his four-year career, and he achieved them while playing just over 26 minutes per contest.
Admittedly, a large part of Harrell’s success is due to Williams, who constantly worked to create the best looks he could for his teammate. Harrell converted 73.3 percent of his attempts at the rim this past season, and just over 72 percent of those were assisted — a majority of which came from the hands of Williams.
Sabonis, on the other hand, fought his way into the conversation by way of both efficient rebounding and scoring. He averaged 14.1 points and 9.3 rebounds per game in his second full season with the Indiana Pacers, all while shooting 59 percent from the field and playing just under 25 minutes per game. He was a big reason why the Pacers were as successful as they were this past season, and as long as he continues to come off the bench, he’ll be a staple of Sixth Man of the Year conversations year in and year out.
Lou Williams is expected to continue coming off the bench for the LA Clippers next season, and as long as he continues to be Lou, he’ll be favored to win his fourth Sixth Man of the Year Award at this same time next year.