NBA: Way-too-early individual award predictions for 2021-22

NBA Sixth Man of the Year – Tyrese Haliburton

The Sacramento Kings have themselves a traffic jam in their backcourt with several starter-worthy guards under their belt. De’Aaron Fox has been nothing short of a diamond in the rough of a rough, rough franchise that is the Sac-Town Kings.

With Fox at the 1 and Buddy Hield at shooting guard, there is little room left for young stud Tyrese Halliburton to jump into the starting lineup where he belongs. Haliburton is a prolific scorer and as good of a guard as you can ask for given his age and size. A few years down the road he will be a capable franchise centerpiece that can facilitate an offense, and dish the ball out to the open man…that is if the Kings don’t ruin him.

The Kings have a knack for wasting talent and absolutely destroying any shot they have of making it out of their 14-year (and counting) playoff drought. Haliburton could be their next big screw-up, simply because he’s just that good yet they can’t start him.

Unless the Kings make some off-season moves to send Buddy Hield packing, it looks like Tyrese will be De’Aaron Fox’s backup for the time being. Expect Haliburton to make a lot of noise when he’s actually on the court.