Lou Williams won the NBA Sixth Man of the Year Award Monday. Many viewed Celtics guard Isaiah Thomas as the favorite, but he placed second.
"(The voting is) not in my control," Thomas said Monday, via ESPN. "Congrats to Lou Will. I can’t say too much about it. All I’m going to say is numbers don’t lie. But congrats to him, he deserves it."
It's hard to fault Thomas for thinking he deserves the award. Most players in the NBA hold themselves to a high standard and he felt confident in how he played this season. He also came close to winning, earning 33 first-place votes and scoring 324 total points in the voting process (Williams had 502 total points).
He had a strong case for the award as he averaged 16.3 points per game, which led the league for bench players (Williams averaged 15.5). There's a debate to be had about whether he would have won had he played for the Celtics longer.
His numbers picked up when he was traded from Phoenix. In 21 appearances with Boston, Thomas averaged 19 points and 5.4 assists over 26 minutes per game.
"(Thomas is] definitely worthy of the award; he played great for us," Evan Turner said. "He was big-time all season. Obviously, if he'd been around all season and we'd finished higher in the [standings], he probably for sure would have got it."
Turner continued by saying both players were deserving candidates and said it would have been a hard choice to choose between the two.
Thomas may not have won the award, but he doesn't need a trophy to prove how valuable he is to Boston. He scored 22 points and finished with 10 assists and five rebounds in the team's 113-100 Game 1 playoff loss to Cleveland.