There’s less than a week remaining in the NBA regular season, which means that the playoff races are coming down to the wire, but so are the battles for postseason awards. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Nikola Jokic have been locked in a titanic struggle for MVP all year, but the campaign for Sixth Man of the Year, though a little more niche, is no less interesting.
Advertisement
Payton Pritchard and Malik Beasley are the odds-on favorites, though Pritchard is widely expected to win due to his increased role on the defending champion Celtics. Now on his fifth team in four years, Beasley is having an outstanding year as well, and he has one prominent supporter for his candidacy—Shaquille O’Neal.
Shaq made the case for Beasley on last night’s Inside the NBA, not necessarily for his stats, which are comparable to Pritchard’s in most ways, but for the way he’s helped the Pistons make the playoffs for the first time in six years and achieve a winning record for the first time since 2016.
“I love what Malik Beasley is doing. NBA journeyman, a lot of people forgot about him, but now he’s a very important factor on [the Pistons].”
Shaq undercut his argument a little by saying that Pritchard had better numbers than Beasley, but he wasn’t really right. Both players are shooting over 40% from three, but Beasley has made more threes and is averaging more points per game. The Pistons have improved by 29 wins and still have three games to go.
Shaq did acknowledge Pritchard’s great season and made it clear that he shouldn’t take his endorsement of Beasley as a slight to him. “No disrespect to Payton Pritchard because he reminds me of my boy Mike Penberthy.”
Penberthy played two seasons in the NBA, both with Shaq’s Lakers in the early 2000s, but he and Pritchard don’t share many qualities from a production standpoint, so the comparison might have been a little disrespectful to Pritchard, even if Shaq didn’t mean it that way.
Nickeil Alexander-Walker also has a strong Sixth Man of the Year case
Beasley is certainly deserving of the award for how good he’s been, but ESPN’s Tim Bontemps threw out another name worth discussing on a recent episode of The Hoop Collective podcast—Nickeil Alexander-Walker of the Timberwolves.
Bontemps did say that Pritchard was his choice for Sixth Man of the Year, but he also praised Alexander-Walker for keeping an oft-injured Wolves squad on the right track, even if his numbers don’t quite stack up to Pritchard’s or Beasley’s. He also pointed to NAW’s clutch free throws to beat the Nuggets in overtime last week.
“Really good two-way player, guards multiple positions, really good shooter, can handle the ball… He’s just had an awesome year, and I think he’s gonna be pretty squarely in my consideration for my ballot too.”
Alexander-Walker’s teammate Naz Reid won the award last year, but it looks like Pritchard is going to get it this time, as he’s currently -1200 on DraftKings, while Beasley is second at +450.
