Iguodala's all-around contributions should make him Sixth Man of the Year

The NBA's Sixth Man of the Year award has heavily favored offensive production coming off the bench since its inception in 1982-83, with every winner from the past 15 seasons ranking in the top three in eligible points per game for second-unit scorers.

It's easy to simply give the honor to the man who scores the most points in that role, as it's fairly standard criteria to help determine who made the biggest impact for their respective squad outside of the starting lineup. That only applies to playoff teams, though, as it's difficult to justify rewarding a player for numbers that don't produce victories.

Andre Iguodala of the Golden State Warriors, the reigning 2015 NBA Finals Most Valuable Player, doesn't possess the ability to take over on offense like Jamal Crawford, nor can he crash the glass as effectively as Enes Kanter. Instead, he's a prime example of why it's important to dig deeper than the box score to evaluate a player's contributions.

While scoring a ton of points in limited minutes looks flashy on paper, it's not the only opportunity for a bench player to leave their footprint on the game. In Iguodala's case, what he gave the defending NBA champions on both ends of the floor played a huge part in getting Golden State to that holy 73-win mark - even if his per-game averages didn't set the world on fire.

Iguodala's 2015-16 production

Playing alongside high-octane scorers in Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson, and even to an extent Draymond Green eliminates the urgency for the 32-year-old veteran to come off the Warriors' bench and put up points in a hurry. Head coach Steve Kerr's second unit only ranks 22nd in the Association in points per game (33.7). About 57.4 percent of the team's offense comes from The Splash Brothers and Green.

Iguodala is converting his field-goal and 3-point attempts at a higher rate than he did last season. However, he's taking under six shots per game (5.7) for the first time in his 12-year career, focusing his attention on other areas to help the Warriors dominate.

He can bring the ball up the court as a de facto point guard, defend multiple positions as a fairly mobile 6-foot-6 wing, keep pace on the fast break, and finish at the rim when the moment strikes.

He's also one-fifth of the deadliest lineup in all of basketball, appropriately dubbed "The Death Lineup." The combination of Iguodala, Curry, Thompson, an undersized Green at center, and Harrison Barnes is about as unstoppable as a unit gets, with a net rating leaps and bounds above the rest.

NBA's top 5-man lineups

(Courtesy: NBA.com, minimum 25 games and 150 total minutes)

The only major deterrent to voting for Iguodala at this point is the fact he missed 17 games due to injury, including a 13-game stretch from March 12 through April 3 with a bum ankle. Only four Sixth Man of the Year winners (Ricky Pierce, Darrell Armstrong, Bobby Jackson, and James Harden) would have played in fewer outings.

He also only scored 10 or more points in 17 of his 65 appearances, which voters will surely hold against him if they remain stuck in old habits and place scoring on a pedestal again.

But on a Golden State roster that went an entire season without losing consecutive games and compiled a final record of 73-9, all the praise and adulation cannot go to just a couple of guys. The Sixth Man of the Year award presents an opportunity to recognize Iguodala for making the Warriors 1.8 points better offensively and three points better defensively per 100 possessions when he played.

Curry will more than likely walk away with a second straight MVP trophy, while Steve Kerr should be the odds-on favorite to win NBA Coach of the Year in just his second season on the job. Iguodala deserves some hardware of his own too.

You just need to dig deeper.

Honorable mentions: Enes Kanter, Oklahoma City Thunder; Jamal Crawford, Los Angeles Clippers; Tristan Thompson, Cleveland Cavaliers; Will Barton, Denver Nuggets; Jeremy Lin, Charlotte Hornets