Payton Pritchard has won the NBA’s 2024-25 Sixth Man of the Year award, receiving 82 first-place votes, the league announced Tuesday.
Pritchard is now the fourth Boston Celtic to win the award, joining Kevin McHale (who won twice), Bill Walton and Malcolm Brogdon. Appropriately, the trophy is named after another Celtic: the originator of the sixth man role, John Havlicek. The award didn’t exist during Havlicek’s Hall of Fame career, but plenty of his successors in Boston have been honored for filling his shoes. Now, Pritchard joins that illustrious group.
The Pistons’ Malik Beasley came in second place with 13 first-place votes and no other player received more than two first-place votes.
Pritchard deviated slightly from the more recent trends in how this award has been handed out. In recent years, with Naz Reid last season serving as a prime example, Sixth Man of the Year winners have inflated their stats with spot starts. But in 80 appearances this season, Pritchard only started three times. All three of those starts came late in the season, when the Celtics were resting regulars and had their seed locked up. During the competitive portion of the season, Pritchard was exclusively a reserve, but was one of the most prolific ones in the NBA.
Among eligible candidates, only De’Andre Hunter and Beasely averaged more points per game. Pritchard gave the Celtics 14 per game while shooting 47.2% from the floor and 41.1% from 3-point range. Couple that remarkable shooting with improvement as a passer and defender and Pritchard has grown into one of the more complete guards in all of basketball.
And on an older Celtics team just trying to get through the regular season, those fireworks off of the bench proved essential. Jrue Holiday and Jaylen Brown had down years. Al Horford is 38. When Boston needed a spark to survive a tough stretch of schedule or a lifeless night against a dangerous opponent, time and time again, it was Pritchard who provided it. While Brad Steves won Executive of the Year last season, no Celtics player took home an individual award during their championship season. Now, Pritchard has done so as they attempt to defend that title.
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