On Wednesday, Lou Williams dropped 50 points on the Warriors, highlighted by a 27-point third quarter. For most NBA fans, his career performance simply affirmed what we’ve known for the last few years — Lou Will is the ‘best Sixth Man alive.’ This decade, we’ve seen the torch passed from Jason Terry to Jamal Crawford, and now, to Williams; the question is — where do this generation’s best Sixth Men rank among the greatest in league history? You’re about to find out.
This isn’t necessarily a ranking of the best Sixth Men of all-time, because we’re only considering those players whose reputations are attached to the ‘Sixth Man’ label. In other words, players who excelled off the bench, before or after they already spent the majority of their career in a starting role, were not considered.
This eliminates: young Kevin McHale (by the mid-80s, he was not only a starter, but also Boston’s second-best player); old Bill Walton (he occupied the role for only one season, years removed from winning an MVP); young Dennis Rodman (by the time the Bad Boy Pistons won back-to-back titles, Rodman was a starter); young Cliff Robinson (went on to serve as the Robin to Drexler’s Batman); young Detlef Schrempf (started for the Payton-Kemp Sonics teams in the ‘90s); old John Starks (assumed the role after starting four seasons for the Knicks); old Lamar Odom (inhabited…
