Evan Turner finishes 5th in Sixth Man of the Year Award voting
The NBA's Sixth Man of the Year Award winner was announced today, with the Clippers Jamal Crawford taking home the honors for a third time. Evan Turner finished fifth in the balloting:
Evan Turner finished fifth in Sixth Man of the Year voting. pic.twitter.com/VZ522uItSz— Chris Forsberg (@ESPNForsberg) April 19, 2016
Turner received three first-place votes:
First-place Sixth Man of the Year votes for Evan Turner: @GwashburnGlobe @RicBucher & MSG Network’s Mike Crispino.— Ben Rohrbach (@brohrbach) April 19, 2016
Celtics coach Brad Stevens had high praise for Turner's candidacy:
After being notified that Evan Turner finished 5th in Sixth Man voting, Stevens says, "We wouldn't prefer to have anyone else at that spot."— Boston Celtics (@celtics) April 19, 2016
Stevens on Turner's Sixth Man finish: "I can't imagine anybody being more valuable off the bench than Evan."— Jay King (@ByJayKing) April 19, 2016
And via Jay King at Mass Live, here's what Turner had to say upon learning the results:
I thought Enes Kanter was gonna win. Last night when I was watching games I didn't realize he had so many double-doubles. But I didn't really expect to win in general, so fifth or first it doesn't really obviously matter. But it's cool to be getting that recognition and be acknowledged for that. That's definitely cool. But right now the focus is just on playoffs.
Kanter was my choice as well, and I couldn't agree more with the following statement:
Crawford is such a lazy 6th Man of the Year pick. Even if you don’t value defense, there are plenty of better offensive options out there.— Ben Rohrbach (@brohrbach) April 19, 2016
Take a look at the stats for players with at least 55 games off the bench this season. Kanter, Will Barton, Ryan Anderson and Darren Collison were all potentially more deserving than Crawford.
Follow Mark Vandeusen on Twitter @LucidSportsFan
