Spurs’ Keldon Johnson honored as NBA’s Sixth Man of the Year, topping Jaquez, Hardaway

Keldon Johnson was the ultimate backup for the San Antonio Spurs this season.

He played in all 82 games, all off the bench, becoming only the second NBA player in the last decade to do that. He became the first Spurs player to score 1,000 points as a reserve in a season. And all year long, San Antonio touted him as the best backup in the league.

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Voters agreed — and the Spurs have another award winner.

Johnson was announced Wednesday as the NBA’s Sixth Man of the Year, joining Manu Ginobili in 2008 as the only Spurs to win the award. It’s the first individual NBA award for Johnson, who was part of the U.S. Olympic team that won gold at the Tokyo Games in 2021.

“I started for a long time,” Johnson said on ESPN after he was revealed as the winner. “Now, it’s my time to come off the bench. I just continue to analyze the game, come off the bench, go in there and just do my thing.”

Jaime Jaquez Jr. of the Miami Heat finished second in the voting and Tim Hardaway Jr. of the Denver Nuggets was third. Jaquez led all NBA reserves in scoring and double-digit games, while Hardaway led reserves with 205 3-pointers and was fourth in the league in scoring off the bench.

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Hardaway and Jaquez tied for ninth in 2024. Hardaway was also fifth in 2021, 10th in 2017 and tied for 13th as a rookie in 2014.

It was the culmination of a two-year run like few others for Johnson, who has appeared in 159 games over the past two seasons — always coming off the bench. No other player in the NBA has played anywhere near that many games without a start in that span.

“I wanted to be part of something special here in San Antonio,” Johnson said. “I knew that in order for me to really be the best for our team that coming off the bench was probably my best possibility. At first, it was tough. I had to (control) my ego and put the team first. After that, the sky was the limit.”

It was the third award the NBA has handed out this postseason, the second won by the Spurs and the first with any real intrigue about who was going to win.

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On Monday, San Antonio’s Victor Wembanyama became the first unanimous…

Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/johnson-wins-nbas-sixth-man-221703090.html

Author : TIM REYNOLDS

Publish date : 2026-04-22 22:17:00

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