Keldon Johnson was the ultimate backup for the San Antonio Spurs this season.
He played in all 82 games, all off the bench, becoming only the second NBA player in the last decade to do that. He became the first Spurs player to score 1,000 points as a reserve in a season. And all year long, San Antonio touted him as the best backup in the league.
Voters seemed to agree — and the Spurs have another award winner.
Johnson was announced Wednesday night as the NBA’s Sixth Man of the Year, joining Manu Ginobili in 2008 as the only Spurs to win that award. It’s the first individual NBA award for Johnson, who was part of the U.S. Olympic team that won gold at the Tokyo Games in 2021.
“I started for a long time,” Johnson said on ESPN. “Now, it’s my time to come off the bench. I just continue to analyze the game, come off the bench, go in there and just do my thing.”
Miami’s Jaime Jaquez Jr. and Denver’s Tim Hardaway Jr. were the other finalists. Jaquez led all reserves in scoring and double-digit games for the Heat, while Hardaway led all reserves with 205 3-pointers and was fourth in scoring for the Nuggets.
Hardaway and Jaquez tied for ninth in 2024. Hardaway was also fifth in 2021, 10th in 2017 and tied for 13th as a rookie in 2014.
It was the culmination of a two-year run like few others for Johnson, who has appeared in 159 games over the past two seasons — always coming off the bench. No other player in the NBA has played anywhere near that many games without a start in that span.
“I wanted to be part of something special here in San Antonio,” Johnson said. “I knew that in order for me to really be the best for our team that coming off the bench was probably my best possibility. At first, it was tough. I had to (control) my ego and put the team first. After that, the sky was the limit.”
It was the third award the NBA has handed out this postseason, the second won by the Spurs and the first with any real intrigue about who was going to win.
On Monday, San Antonio’s Victor Wembanyama was the first-ever unanimous selection as Defensive Player of the Year. And on Tuesday, reigning MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander of Oklahoma City was named the Clutch Player of the Year — getting 96 of the 100 possible first-place votes.
The league’s Sportsmanship Award winner will be announced Thursday, with one player from each division — Miami’s Bam Adebayo (Southeast), San Antonio’s Harrison Barnes (Southwest), Gilgeous-Alexander (Northwest), Golden State’s Al Horford (Pacific), Indiana’s T.J. McConnell (Central) and Boston’s Derrick White (Atlantic) — selected as the finalists. That award is voted on by players, not the media panel that decides most other award winners.
The Most Improved Player award — either Nickeil Alexander-Walker of Atlanta, Deni Avdija of Portland or Jalen Duren of Detroit — will be revealed Friday.
Other awards that are coming but have not had their announcement dates revealed are Coach of the Year (Detroit’s J.B. Bickerstaff, San Antonio’s Mitch Johnson or Boston’s Joe Mazzulla), Rookie of the Year (Philadelphia’s VJ Edgecombe, Dallas’ Cooper Flagg or Charlotte’s Kon Knueppel) and MVP (Gilgeous-Alexander, Wembanyama or Denver’s Nikola Jokic).
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