Will Barton finishes fourth in NBA's Sixth Man Award voting

Denver Nuggets guard Will Barton finished fourth in the NBA’s Sixth Man of the Year voting, the league announced this morning.

Los Angeles Clippers reserve Jamal Crawford won the award for a record third time with 51 first place votes, while the Warriors forward Andre Iguodala finished second, the Thunder’s Enes Kanter third, and Barton fourth. You can see the results below and the votes broken down by media member here.

Kevin McHale, Ricky Pierce, and Detlef Schrempf are the only other players to win the award more than once, each of them having won the honor two times while Crawford has won the award previously in both 2010 and 2014.

Barton, 25, averaged 14.4 points, 5.8 rebounds and 2.5 assists in 28.7 minutes per game this season, all career highs over the course of 82 games for Denver. The Baltimore native was also the only Nuggets player to appear in all 82 games this year.

Barton carried the offense on Denver’s second unit throughout the season and thrived as the Nuggets No. 1 scoring option in December when Danilo Gallinari missed time.

Last week I wrote about how players are made in the offseason and how travel and the NBA schedules make practice time during the season a premium. Barton is a testament to that notion.

Barton upped his 3-point percentage, which last year stood at 25.3 percent, nearly ten percentage points to the 34.5 percent he shot from deep this year. Much of that work was put in over the summer when Barton teamed up with Dan Connelly, brother of Nuggets general manager Tim Connelly, back in Baltimore.

“Working on his jumper in catch-and-shoot was our top priority this summer,” Dan Connelly said to me back in December. “[Specifically] to improve his shot preparations and finish of his shot.”

Connelly and Barton put in hours of work, usually 5-6 days a week in his high school gym, to get his shot to where it needed to be.

Mission accomplished.

Barton had a case to win Sixth Man of the Year, but he also could garner some votes for Most Improved Player as well.