This award is not meant to reward All-Stars like Manu Ginobili. It's designed to give recognition to a key bench player who contributed the most to his team. There needs to be a minutes cap on this award. Right now it's meaningless.
I don't see anything wrong with Ginobili winning it, yeah he plays a lot of minutes but the team performs better with him off the bench.
It's because he's not a bench player. He's an All-Star and one of the best players in the NBA. It's meaningless to recognize him as a "sixth man" when he is easily his team's second best player and plays the third most minutes. What is the point of giving a guy an award for that? I think the award would mean more if it recognized a true bench player that was a key to his team's success. Someone like Jason Maxiell, Josh Childress or Kyle Korver. I think the award was meant to recognize players like those.
On the other hand, if you give it to a Maxiell, Childress, or Korver, people who know basketball will look at Manu and think he got robbed. In a way it's a lot like the MVP debate, where we argue whether we give to the player who's team had the best year, or the best player of the year. With the Sixth man, we argue whether or not it matters an All-Star like Manu got it, or we should give it to a non-all-star quality player who performs exceptionally.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Real @ Apr 21 2008, 06:37 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>On the other hand, if you give it to a Maxiell, Childress, or Korver, people who know basketball will look at Manu and think he got robbed.</div> Ergo, my suggestion of a minutes cap.
ya, pretty much the same thing as bringing in Redd, Jason Richardson, or Baron Davis off the bench and having them win 6th man. This just makes me hate Ginobli that much more.
It ended up finishing with: 1. Ginobli (99.2%) 2. Barbosa (45.6%) 3. Terry (7.1%) 4. Korver (5.5%) 5. Gordon (4.4%) Ginobli: 18.2 PPG (44.4 FG%) 4.6 RPG 4.0 APG Barbosa: 14.7 PPG (44.7 FG%) 2.7 RPG 2.6 APG Terry: 14.3 PPG (45.7 FG%) 2.4 RPG 3.0 APG Korver: 9.9 PPG (44.4 FG%) 2.3 RPG 1.4 APG Gordon: 19.3 PPG (46.7 FG%) 2.6 RPG 3.0 APG All things considered, it should have been: 1. Ginobli 2. Gordon 3. Barbosa 4. Terry With Ginobli getting a near majority on the 1st place votes, and Gordon with a near majority on the 2nd place votes. At least they got the winner right, but what idiots vote on this?