Is it too early to start talking about potential award winners in only the second week of the NBA season?
Probably.
That won’t stop us from doing so anyway, because it’s always fun to get your predictions in after seeing a small dose of what’s to come.
That’s what former ex-NBA player Mateen Cleaves did on Thursday night after watching the performance of a white-hot Jamal Crawford, who stuck it to his former team – the Portland Trail Blazers – by scoring a game-high 25 points on nine-of-17 shooting off the bench. Cleaves predicted that Crawford would win this season’s Sixth Man of the Year award – something yours truly predicted before the start of the season.
Crawford is certainly turning heads early on with perhaps one of the finest shooting stretches of his career, but he isn’t the only player off to an exceptional start as a sixth man. To get a better idea of who may be on their way towards winning the award, lets take a look at the top five performers (in no particular order) off the bench so far in the young season: