Los Angeles Lakers’ Lamar Odom wins NBA’s Sixth-Man of the Year Award
Los Angeles Lakers’ 6-foot-10-inch power forward Lamar Odom has been announced as the winner of the NBA’s KIA Sixth Man of the Year Award for the 2010-11 season. The award is conferred upon the league’s best performing reserve, someone who has been pivotal to his team’s performance during the season.
To be eligible for this honor, a player needs to have played more games as a reserve than he has started. Odom had featured off the bench for the Lakers 47 times this season and had been active for all 82 games.
The NBA announced Tuesday that Lamar Odom had been chosen for the award out of a possible 16 contenders, which included Jason Terry of the Dallas Mavericks, Thaddeus Young from the Philadelphia 76ers, Glen Davis from the Boston Celtics and Jamal Crawford from the Atlanta Hawks among others.
Odom was awarded 513 out of a maximum of 585 points, as he received 96 of the 117 first-place votes. The panel that decided the award was constituted of 117 sports journalists and broadcasters from the United States and Canada. The players got accredited with five points for every first-place vote, three points for second-place and one point for the third spot.
Jason Terry finished in second place with 244 points. He was also the second choice for the award last season behind Jamal Crawford of the Atlanta Hawks.
Thaddeus Young from the 76ers ended up with a tally of 76 points to finish in third place in the voting.
Odom has averaged 14.4 points and 8.7 rebounds in close to 32 minutes per game for the Lakers this season. He boasted an impressive shooting average of 53 percent from the floor and has played a huge part in the Lakers second-seed finish in the Eastern Conference.
He recorded 12 double-doubles this season as a substitute, while posting an overall number of 28 double-doubles for the season. He filled the scoreboard with double-digit scores 63 times and posted 20 or more points 14 times during this season.
Kia Motors will also provide a brand-new Kia Sorento to the Lakers Youth Foundation as part of the ‘The KIA NBA Performance Awards’.
The Sixth Man of the Year award is part of a quartet of awards handed out every season to applaud the on-court performances of the players in the league. The other awards include, the Most Improved Player Award, the Defensive Player of the Year award and The Most Valuable Player (MVP) of the Year award.
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