NBA 6th Man of the Year Award picks for 2026-27 season

At long last, the 2026-27 NBA season is nearly upon us, and with so much anticipation surrounding the official tip-off, awards predictions are hot in the search engine optimization world.

Some categories are easy to narrow down. Victor Wembanyama, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, and Luka Doncic will all have something to say about the Most Valuable Player award. Wembanyama and Chet Holmgren will swat their way into Defensive Player of the Year consideration.

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But others are far more wide-open. Like, you guessed it, the Sixth Man of the Year award. To be considered for this honor, you not only have to be one of the best players coming off the bench in the league, but you also need the cards to fall in a way where you don’t end up having to start so many games that you are omitted from contention.

Projecting this race can be a tall task. But never fear, there is a way to narrow down the playing field, so long as we follow the lead of all great philosophers, and let history be our guide.

Who Usually Wins Sixth Man of the Year?

From looking at past winners, you realize that there are two key ingredients to a 6MOY year candidacy. First, you need to score a lot of points. And second, you need to play on a team that wins a lot of games.

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To put some color on these two elements, since 2001-02, every player who has taken home the award has eclipsed the 13 points per game mark, even last season’s winner (Keldon Johnson, 13.2 PPG). And of those 25 winners, 20 of them (80%) played on a team that ended the season with a top four record in their respective conference.

With these parameters in place, let’s look at a couple of names that could fall under this description.

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[Sidebar: The exceptions to this second point are Lou Williams (twice), Jason Terry (2008-09), Mike Miller (2005-06), and Antawn Jamison (2003-04), who all still played on teams that made the playoffs.]

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Ajay Mitchell (+490, 16.9%)

We’re going to do this in order of their odds on FanDuel Sportsbook. As of right now, Ajay Mitchell is the leader in the clubhouse, which makes sense since he plays for one of the best teams in the…

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Publish date : 2026-10-16 12:00:00

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