The NBA's Underappreciated: Breaking Down the Top Sixth Men

Columnist Written on August 30, 2009

Slide 1 of 8

It happens at every level of basketball: the starting five receive their due amount of spotlight, while the role players and sixth men of the teams receive little or no publicity.

The NBA has done a nice job getting these players some well-deserved attention by instituting the Sixth Man of the Year Award in 1982, but the league's top backups still don't receive as much attention as they are due.

A good bench player can have just as much of an impact, if not more, than some starters have on a good team.

I decided that it would be a good idea to shed some light on the players who typically aren't put in the limelight as often as they should be, by ranking the league's top backups.

Since I am ranking the top sixth men in the league, I figured it would be appropriate to stray from the conventional "Top Five" or "Top Ten" and instead list the "Top Six" sixth men.

*Note: for those of you who don't recognize the picture, it is Bobby Jones of the Philadelphia 76ers, the first ever recipient of the NBA's Sixth Man of the Year Award*

And now, I present some of the league's most underappreciated players:

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The NBA's Underappreciated: Breaking Down the Top Sixth Men

Greg Haefner

The NBA's Underappreciated: Breaking Down the Top Sixth Men

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