Miami Heat center Chris Andersen has never started more than three games in an NBA season. Birdman has played in 69 playoff games coming off the bench in every one. In his entire career Anderson has started ten games. For a guy who has earned nearly $30 million dollars playing a dozen seasons in the NBA this is quite unique.
His career per 36 minute numbers are 11 points, 10 rebounds, 3 blocks with a 58% true shooting. Throw in the ring he won with Miami last season and we are looking at a really good career. Further, is it possible that Chris Andersen is the best sixth man in NBA history?
Thanks to Basketball-Reference.com we can attempt to answer this question. Using ‘win shares’ as an estimate of career value let’s start with players who have accumulated over 30 career win shares. This is a comprehensive list of nearly every substantial player in league history. There are 626 players (and counting) at this level of production.
Unfortunately, we don’t have solid ‘games started’ data before 1980. Of course most great players are starters so there are probably only a few key sixth men who were really good before the early ’80s. To be accurate we will just include players who were primarily coming off the bench after 1980 in this study.
A few notable points:
- Bobby Jones won the first sixth man of the year award in 1983 while playing for the NBA champion Philadelphia 76’ers.
- Boston Celtics forward Kevin McHale took home the award in each of the next two seasons.
- Only Detlef Schrempf and Ricky Pierce would ever win sixth man of the year multiple times after McHale.
- McHale, Schrempf and Pierce would start over 250 games in their NBA career’s.
Back to the study. Using 250 career games started as a cut-off we find forty-five players with 30+ win shares and less than 250 starts. This criteria yields us with Michael Cooper, Vinnie Johnson and Kyle Korver as the best ‘career’ sixth-men.
Korver is going to finish with well over 250 starts so we should exclude him. Cooper and Johnson are both great candidates for best of all-time. The Microwave won two titles with the Detroit Pistons while not starting any games in their playoff runs. He averaged 14 points/game off the bench in the ’89 playoffs for the Pistons.
Mike won at least three titles with the Lakers while not starting a game. In the ’87 playoffs he averaged 13 points, 5 assists in 29 minutes while shooting 49% from three and making almost two three’s per game. Plus Cooper played great defense against Larry Bird and Danny Ainge in the Lakers win in the NBA Finals. We are probably looking at the greatest single year performance for a sixth man right here.
On the note of career value, the only players who started fewer games than Michael Cooper but still compiled over 30 win shares are:
- Steve Kerr
- Jon Barry
- Matt Bonner
- Chris Andersen
- Chris Gatling
- Carl Landry
Looking at the career value (including the playoffs) of these six players it’s hard to choose against Kerr. Five championship rings and the career record for three-point percentage he’s got my vote.
Chris Andersen is probably the best minute-for-minute ‘career’ sixth man in NBA history. He just won’t have the longevity of Kerr.
So it depends on how you want to define your terms but the finalists for greatest career sixth man are Michael Cooper, Steve Kerr and Chris Andersen.
Foul Line Extended 