There has been a lot of talk about whether Isaiah Stewart will play enough this season to be eligible for the All-Defensive team or to be in the running for Defensive Player of the Year, but there is an award for which he is being overlooked and that is the 6th Man of the Year award.
Stewart has been as impactful off the bench as any player in the NBA, as he is second in total blocks this season and third in blocks per game even though he is usually a sub.
His opponent’s field goal percentage at the rim is the best in the NBA by a mile, and he is leading all bench players in blocks.
If you actually watch the Pistons, his impact is noticeable the second he steps on the floor and those who challenge Stew at the rim usually find out the hard way that it wasn’t a good idea. He's also been effective switching onto smaller players as we saw against the Cavs when he made a key block after picking up Donovan Mitchell.
Unfortunately for Stewart, he doesn’t put up the kind of numbers that general attract attention for this award, so he may get shut out even though he’s as impactful as any bench player in the NBA.
Isaiah Stewart would be a different kind of 6th Man of the Year
Stewart is averaging just under 10 points a game, which already makes him a tough sell as 6th Man of the Year.
Since 1990, there has only been one player to take home the award without averaging double-digits, and that was Anthony Mason back in 1994, who scored 9.9 points per game. For those of us who were alive, that was a much different era, and scoring was way down because of the prevalence of physical defense, which is clearly no longer the case.
Most of the 6th Man awards have gone to score-first guards who come off the bench and scored in bunches. In the last 15 seasons, there have only been three players that didn’t fit that mold in Naz Reid, Montrezl Harrell and Lamar Odom, but even those guys were scoring at a higher rate, with Reid’s 13.5 ppg the lowest of the bunch.
Most of the 6th Man recipients fall into the Tyler Herro, Jordan Clarkson, Lou Williams mold, which are guys who score a ton and don’t play defense.
There isn’t anyone of late who was primarily thought of as an elite defender without much offense, which would be what Stewart is trying to sell. Reid would be the closest, but his 3-point shooting was what put him over the top for the award, not his defense.
Stewart would really be shifting the paradigm by winning the award, as it would show the league and voters value defense as much as offense. In other words, it’s probably not going to happen, but I would argue Stewart should be in the mix, as there are few bench players in the league that have impacted winning as much as him.