Gibson embodies the Bulls' way. A rugged defender who maximizes his offensive impact through a potent mix of elbow grease and mid-range proficiency, he follows the same path as the starting five and adds his own twist to the second team. That's what sixth men are supposed to do. Unfortunately, that's not enough to meet the criteria this archaic voting criteria. Unless Gibson stumbles into a pile of points that aren't available in this offense, he'll go down as the most valuable sixth man—but not the Sixth Man of the Year. (See link above)
Hey I agreed with you that Taj is deserving and The Bulls have a gaudy record in 2014. I do fear that voters will be blinded by meaningless numbers weighting down The Bulls from their early season struggles so the competition will remain, especially with weak minded attraction to the overall better teams rather than which 6th man helped his team the most. Much like MVP voting. is there a reliable analysis for 6th man contention? Does Hollinger the Integer have a stat for that? A 6M/PER adjusted for pace per 36 minues and 100 possessions? Anyway, Taj deserves it. It remains to be seen if the intelligencia concur.
The Bulls' record and the lack of a lot of other major contributors, someone deserves the credit. Taj is 2nd on the team in PER at 16.2, which isn't an insanely great number but actually a very good one for a bench player. One of the better ones.
I completely agree (PER reference notwithstanding). Deserving and getting are 2 different things. One can only hope.
Unfortunately, this is one of those "media" awards rather than a "coaches" award. This generally means that small markets need not apply and that the winner will come from among the playoff favorites. As for stats, points per game is king with the media boys and girls. Forget Taj, put your money on former Bull Jamal Crawford of the 50-22 Clippers and his 18.6ppg...and frankly, Crawford is not undeserving of the award. Sent from my Venue 7 3730 using Tapatalk
Not undeserving? Crawford's TS% this year is .557, close to the highest of his career. The most efficient Rose has ever been is .550.
Me too. The all-defensive teams are picked by coaches. Gibson has a better chance at that (2nd team).