While Lou Williams certainly isn’t the most talented player to take on the role of 6th man, nor is he the greatest 6MOY award winner, he might still have a case.

Lou Williams recently passed Dell Curry for most points scored off the bench, and unlike the majority of the other 29 players to win the 6MOY award he’s embodied the role of bench scorer throughout his career. Only twice in his 14-year career has Williams started more than 50% of his games. He first did so in 2010 when he started just over 59% of his games for the 76ers. He did it again in 2016 for the Lakers when he started a little over 52% of his games. Needless to say, Williams’ role as the 6th man has been fairly consistent throughout his career. He’s currently the frontrunner for this year’s 6MOY award, and with a win, he’ll tie Jamal Crawford for the most all-time with three. Points-wise and awards-wise, Williams has a case, but how does he stack up statistically?

The Stats

To see how Williams measures up so far, stats were collected on all 30 players who have won the 6MOY of the year award. A graph was created which took each player’s voting shares for the award and plotted it against their win-shares in seasons where they received those award shares. Voting shares essentially measure how each player stacked up against the competition, while win-shares look at the player’s overall impact on the court.

6MOY voting shares vs Win Shares as 6th man.

As the graph shows, Jamal Crawford leads all players with 3.073 6MOY voting shares. This indicates that J-Cross was a leading vote-getter for the award the most times. Manu Ginobili, who ranks third in voting shares leads all sixth-men with 63.6 win-shares off the bench. This statistic implies that the Spurs’ great was the most impactful of any sixth-man throughout his career.

Can Lou Will Do It?

Right now, Lou Williams is second in 6MOY award shares with 2.339. He currently trails Crawford by 0.734 shares. If he can dominate the award voting this year, he has a chance to not only tie Crawford for most awards, but take over first place in terms of award shares.

Williams currently trails Ginobili by 25.2 win-shares as a sixth man. This season, Williams has accumulated 4.8 win-shares, and for his career, he averages four win-shares per year. To surpass Manu, Lou needs to play until he’s 38 and at his current win-shares average. His last two seasons, however, he put up 6.1 and 6.7 win-shares, and at that rate, he’d only need about four more seasons to pass Ginobili.

The Verdict

Ginobili was one of the best to lace them up, and he truly embodied what the 6th man position represented. Photo courtesy of Mike Erhmann/Getty Images

Even if Lou Williams passes Crawford and Ginobili in voting and wins shares respectively, his case for GOAT 6th man is a difficult one. Ginobili had three seasons in which he started at least 50% of his games, and in two of them, he made the All-Star team and Third-Team All-NBA. In Williams’ two seasons as a starter, he wasn’t remotely close to being an All-Star or making an All-NBA team. Granted, the 2010 76ers and 2016 Lakers teams that he started for were dreadful. Even still, Ginobili also won four championships, was an excellent 6th man in the playoffs, and is a future Hall of Famer.

Overall, while Lou Williams may end his career with the most 6MOY awards, and go down as the all-time bench scoring leader, 6th man voting shares leader, 6th man win shares leader, he lacks the accomplishments of Ginobili, and for that reason, his peak is likely the second best 6th man of all time.

Stats courtesy of Basketball Reference

Featured image courtesy of Robert Laberge/Getty Images

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