NBA 6MOY Power Rankings: Jordan Clarkson is setting the league on fire

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Miami Heat Goran Dragic (Photo by Mike Ehrmann/Getty Images) /

Power ranking the top 5 candidates for the NBA’s Sixth Man of the Year award

With the NBA season more than a third of the way done, it’s time to start looking around at frontrunners for awards. While most focus on the big awards like MVP and Rookie of the Year, a truly publicly undervalued award race (and my personal favorite) is the Sixth Man of the Year award.

Great play off the bench is hard to come by and teams with good bench players seem to hover at the top of the standings. Some of the best teams ever had key sixth man guys on their roster – players like Kevin McHale, Toni Kukoc, Manu Ginobili, Lamar Odom, Jamal Crawford, and Lou Williams. All these players were key to the playoff runs or titles for their respective teams at the time.

This year has seen a ton of great bench play across the league from guys like Alex Caruso, Terrence Ross, Danilo Gallinari, Eric Gordon, and (as always) sweet Lou Williams. But there have been five players making serious headway coming off the bench and are in contention for this year’s Sixth Man of the Year.

Let’s take a look at the top five candidates for the award (so far).