Houston Rockets: Why Eric Gordon should win the 6th Man of the Year
In about a month, the Houston Rockets will find out if two of their outstanding candidates will win the NBA 6th Man of the Year Award.
It has been awhile since I’ve written about my Houston Rockets because I’ve been in my feelings in regard to the piss-poor performance they had against the San Antonio Spurs in Games 5/6. It was as if the entire team had waved the surrender flag and didn’t want anymore of their opponent. The Rockets clearly were the younger, fresher team but they ended up looking like the worn-out veterans as opposed to their counterpart.
But as much as I want to bash how the team did in the playoffs, there’s no way I can discount the high-level of play that they sustained through the regular season. The Houston Rockets remained quite consistent all the way through and held onto the No. 3 seed for dear life. Winning 55 games in a season is no easy task and this team was able to do it with finesse.
With that being said, seasonal awards are just that for the season. If they were handed out during the playoffs, a lot of opinions would change, especially mine on James Harden, who once again played a disappearing act when we needed him the most. I just hope that this pattern doesn’t re-occur time and again because it’s absolutely frustrating to see. He will succeed the MVP award to Russell Westbrook and at this point, I’m perfectly fine with that.
Any way, the Rockets have two players on deck that are finalists for the 6th Man of the Year Award. I’m pretty sure you know that Eric Gordon and Lou Williams are the leading candidates to win this award, ensuring some of that seasonal hardware will likely come to H-Town. Andre Iguodala is also in the running but I think our guys are better candidates. Iggy has never won the award either but the Golden State Warriors are such a good team, his performance although considerable doesn’t overshadow the work or guys have done.
The choice is clear — Eric Gordon should win the 6th Man of the Year. His production has far exceeded any of the other candidates and remained healthy in the robust role that he played last season. Out the three candidates, no player made more three-pointers than Gordon. He hoisted up 246 on the season — a career-high for him — compared to 163 for Lou and 64 Iggy.
Gordon also shot the highest percentage of three-pointers — a big component of the Rockets and Warriors offenses — with him finishing the season at 37.2 percent. Iggy shot a 36.2 percent clip and Lou at 35.2 percent.
Gordon’s productivity every time he stepped out on the court as exceptional, averaging 25.1 points per 100 possessions. Sweet Lou definitely did just as well on that front putting up 32.1 points per 100 between both the Los Angeles Lakers and the Rockets. He averaged 27.9 with the Rockets this season. Iggy was a distance third at 13.8 points per 100.
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Now these three candidates are certainly deserving of winning this award because in retrospect, their numbers are somewhat better than Gordon some categories but he has made tremendous strides to be great since his languishing stretch with the New Orleans Pelicans and should be rewarded just for the turnaround that he has had in his career.
Williams has already won the 6th Man of the Year and Iggy is on a team that just too damn good from top to bottom. And there’s Gordon, a guy we took a shot on with his injury history, pleasantly surprising many with his jarring, high-level of play on the court.
We’ll have to see how this pans out but I feel that Gordon has made a strong case to win this prestigious award.
Go Rockets.