Toronto Raptors guard Lou Williams has won the NBA’s Sixth Man Award as the league’s best reserve player.
Williams averaged a career-high 15.5 points in his 10th NBA season, helping Toronto win a franchise-record 49 games.
Williams earned 78 first-place votes and 502 total points from a panel of 130 sportswriters and broadcasters throughout the United States and Canada.
“It’s great. He deserves it. We played with the best sixth man in the league and he deserves it,” DeMar DeRozan said. “The way he really impacted the game when he came in, he really helped us win a lot of big games. He finished a lot of games and helped us pull a lot of games out. . . It was amazing to me to be able to be out there with him and see the things he was able to do in the short amount of time he was out there.”
“So I’m happy for him and congratulations to him.”
Isaiah Thomas of the Boston Celtics finished second with 324 points (33 first-place votes), and two-time winner Jamal Crawford of the Los Angeles Clippers was third with 131 points (eight first-place votes).
Raptors GM Masai Ujiri took a chance on Williams, acquiring him in a trade with the Atlanta Hawks. Williams was on the mend from a torn ACL, and was coming off one of the worst seasons of his career.
“I’m just excited about Lou, a guy who comes back from his injury, worked hard, dedicated himself to getting his body right, nobody kind of knew what he was going to bring to the table once he was signed, whether it was damaged goods or whatever,” said Raptors coach Dwane Casey. “He’s proved to everybody that he’s the old Lou Williams.”
Williams came off the bench in all 80 of his appearances and averaged 25.2 minutes a game. He led or tied for the team lead in scoring 18 times, second most in the league for a reserve. The Raptors went 14-4 in those games.
The 28-year-old also led the Raptors in free throw percentage (86.1) and made a career-high 152 three-pointers, nearly double his previous high of 88 set with the 76ers in 2010-11.
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