Kerr pushes Iguodala for 6th Man: 'There's no way anyone is better than Andre'
The Golden State Warriors have hauled in a whole bunch of hardware the past couple seasons - two MVPs for Steph Curry, a Coach of the Year award for Steve Kerr, an Executive of the Year award for Bob Myers, a Larry O'Brien trophy - but Kerr is hoping the team's sixth man will get some recognition this spring.
Kerr famously convinced Andre Iguodala, who started every game of his career for his first 10 seasons, to move to the bench before the 2014-15 campaign. Iguodala wound up finishing fourth in Sixth Man of the Year voting, then was named Finals MVP as the Warriors won the title. A season ago, he finished runner-up in the voting, as the Warriors won a record 73 games. This year, Kerr thinks it's time he won the damn thing.
"I don't know if I've ever really pushed any of our players for awards - Steph for MVP, Draymond (Green) for Defensive Player of the Year. Maybe I have," Kerr said Friday, according to Anthony Slater of the San Jose Mercury News. "It's not something I normally do. But I am sort of intrigued by the Sixth Man of the Year award. It seems like it should just say highest-scoring player off the bench award. Depends on how people look at it. But if you want to look at the best sixth man in the game, in terms of winning, there's no way anyone is better than Andre."
Indeed, the highest-scoring reserves have typically been the ones to get recognized by the voters, with the likes of Jamal Crawford, Lou Williams, and J.R. Smith taking home the hardware in recent years. Iguodala doesn't pile up points, but he helps stir the potent Warriors drink with his playmaking, ball-handling, and lockdown defense at multiple positions. He's averaging modest counting stats this season - 7.3 points, four rebounds, 3.4 assists, one steal - but he's been part of some of the league's deadliest lineups, and Basketball-Reference has him putting up a career high in Win Shares per 48 minutes.
"He's like a starter for us," Kerr said. "He's played backup point guard. He's currently our backup power forward. He guards the best player every single night - Kawhi Leonard, James Harden. He comes in and automatically guards the best guy. I think he leads the league in assist-to-turnover ratio.
"This guy, he's phenomenal."