Payton Pritchard is the winner of the NBA’s Sixth Man of the 12 months Award, the league introduced Tuesday night. The Boston Celtics guard beat out different high candidates, Malik Beasley and Ty Jerome, for the distinction.
Pritchard logged profession highs just about throughout the board, apart from three-point share. In 80 appearances for the Cs, the 27-year-old averaged 14.3 factors, 3.8 rebounds, and three.5 assists whereas capturing 47.2% from the sector and 40.7% from past the arc.
He’s the second Celtic prior to now three seasons to take house the NBA’s John Havlicek Trophy, becoming a member of Malcolm Brogdon, who gained it in 2023. Satirically, Pritchard needed to be traded from Boston whereas buried on the bench behind Brogdon. As a substitute, it was Brogdon who was dealt, and Pritchard took full benefit of the chance.
In his second season with an prolonged function, Pritchard shortly grew to become a favourite for Sixth Man of the 12 months. His 28-point outing in an October twenty eighth matchup with the Milwaukee Bucks was an eye-opener for a lot of. He was so good that he practically broke Doc Rivers within the course of.
That efficiency ignited a season-long sizzling streak that’s nonetheless going sturdy to at the present time. Pritchard’s spectacular outburst in Sunday’s Recreation 1 towards the Orlando Magic was the proper cherry-on-top main as much as this award choice.
Quick PP was precisely that — quick.
He checked into the sport with 1:50 left within the first quarter after which proceeded the rating 11 of the following 13 factors for the Celtics, together with this sick step-through towards Cole Anthony.
Pritchard completed the day with 19 factors on an environment friendly 6-of-8 from the sector in simply 24 minutes. It was nearly as near an ideal sixth man efficiency as you will get, a close to excellent encapsulation of the season he has had.
He’s now the fourth Celtic to win the award, becoming a member of Brogdon, Invoice Walton, and Kevin McHale (twice). The legend Purple Auerbach is basically credited for inventing the sixth man function for Frank Ramsey who performed behind Bob Cousy and Invoice Sharman.
