{"id":716203,"date":"2026-04-22T22:51:22","date_gmt":"2026-04-22T22:51:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/716203\/"},"modified":"2026-04-22T22:51:22","modified_gmt":"2026-04-22T22:51:22","slug":"spurs-keldon-johnson-wins-sixth-man-of-the-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/716203\/","title":{"rendered":"Spurs’ Keldon Johnson wins Sixth Man of the Year"},"content":{"rendered":"

The San Antonio Spurs<\/a> picked up another award Wednesday, with Keldon Johnson<\/a> earning Sixth Man of the Year honors. Johnson beat out the Miami Heat<\/a>\u2019s Jaime Jaquez Jr.<\/a> and the Denver Nuggets<\/a>\u2019 Tim Hardaway Jr.<\/a> for the award.<\/p>\n

Johnson played in all 82 games this season, averaging more than 23 minutes per contest off the bench. He averaged 13.2 points, 5.4 rebounds and 1.4 assists per game within those limited minutes while making a clear impact for the surging Spurs.<\/p>\n

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Johnson was selected No. 29 overall by the Spurs in 2019, and he was a starter in the 2020-21 season. But with the arrival of 2025 Rookie of the Year Stephon Castle<\/a>, Johnson\u2019s starts were limited, so the 26-year-old has since become a key piece of the Spurs\u2019 bench.<\/p>\n

This year, Johnson worked primarily behind Castle at shooting guard, but also operated as a backup small forward and power forward in a pinch. Johnson finished the year with 13 games scoring 20-plus points, including a season-high 27 points twice; he also put up five double-doubles in points and rebounds.<\/p>\n

Johnson set a franchise record this season with 1,081 points off the bench, which surpassed the mark Manu Gin\u00f3bili<\/a> set in 2007-08 when he won Sixth Man of the Year. They are the only Spurs in history to win the award.<\/p>\n

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Jaquez came in second in the voting on Wednesday, and Hardaway finished in third.<\/p>\n

Johnson becomes the second Spurs player to win an NBA award this week, joining Victor Wembanyama<\/a>, who was unanimously named Defensive Player of the Year<\/a> on Monday. Wembanyama is also nominated<\/a> for NBA MVP, while Spurs head coach Mitch Johnson has been nominated for Coach of the Year in his first full season<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Spurs are in the midst of their opening-round playoff series with the Portland Trail Blazers<\/a>. That series sits at 1-1 after two opening games in San Antonio<\/a>, though the Spurs lost Wembanyama to a concussion on Tuesday night<\/a>. Game 3 of the series is set for Friday in Portland.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The San Antonio Spurs picked up another award Wednesday, with Keldon Johnson earning Sixth Man of the Year…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":716204,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[7,187,4959,2850,1537,189,3361,6,471,969,474,6583,930,2594,911,693],"class_list":{"0":"post-716203","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-denver-nuggets","10":"tag-jaime-jaquez-jr","11":"tag-keldon-johnson","12":"tag-manu-ginobili","13":"tag-miami-heat","14":"tag-mitch-johnson","15":"tag-nba","16":"tag-portland-trail-blazers","17":"tag-san-antonio","18":"tag-san-antonio-spurs","19":"tag-sixth-man-of-the-year","20":"tag-stephon-castle","21":"tag-the-spurs","22":"tag-tim-hardaway-jr","23":"tag-victor-wembanyama"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116450812437237001","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/716203","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=716203"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/716203\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/716204"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=716203"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=716203"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=716203"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}