Markieff Morris on his 6th Man candidacy: 'I deserve Sixth Man Award for the team success'

Suns forward Markieff Morris isn't shy when it comes to expressing his thoughts on the 6th Man of the Year Award. He believes he deserves it.

In an interview with Paul Coro of the Arizona Republic, Markieff said:

When you're supposed to win 17 and you got a guy like me averaging 14 points and we might pull off a playoff run 15 or 16 games above .500. You knew the Clippers were going to be good. You knew the Bulls were going to be good, with or without [Derrick Rose]. Y'all thought we were going after a Number 1 pick. I think I deserve Sixth Man Award for the team success."

Morris' comments hold a lot of validity, as he has certainly been a big contributor to the Suns' unexpected success this season. Coming into the season, most prognosticators -- Vegas had their win-total at 21 -- pegged the Suns as a young lottery-bound squad that would come nowhere close to their current record of 47-32. On the year, Morris is averaging 13.7 points, 6.1 rebounds and 1.8 assists per game on an efficient true-shooting percentage of 56.5.

In his comments regarding the Clippers and Bulls, Morris references two of his leading competitors -- Chicago's Taj Gibson and Los Angeles' Jamal Crawford -- in the race for the Sixth Man of the Year. Although the three players could not be more dissimilar -- Gibson is a defense-first, post-up big, Crawford is a ball-dominant, shot-creating wing and Morris is a mobile stretch-four -- their statistical output is fairly comparable.

[h/t: Pro Basketball Talk]