Lamar Odom of the NBA’s Los Angeles Lakers was named the winner of the 2010-11 Sixth Man Award on April 19th. The award goes to the best player in the league in a reserve role. Surprisingly, Odom becomes the first Lakers player to ever capture the award. He played in all of the team’s 82 games, coming off of the bench in 47 of them. To be eligible for the Sixth Man Award, a player has to come off of the bench in more contests than they start in.
He won the trophy in convincing fashion as he garnered 513 out of a possible total of 585 points. This included 96 first-place votes out of 117. The voting was done by a panel of 117 broadcasters and sportswriters throughout North America. The players earned five points for every first-place vote, with three points for every second-place nod, and a single point for every third-place vote.
The Dallas Mavericks’ Jason Terry finished second in the voting for the second straight year as he received a total of 244 voting points. The Philadelphia 76ers’ Thaddeus Young came in third place with a total of 76 points.
The award is sponsored by Kia Motors and the auto manufacturer is set to give the Lakers Youth Foundation a brand new Kia Sorento CUV. The club’s youth foundation is designed to assist community nonprofit organizations. Kia will actually donate a new Sorento to a charity for each winner of four NBA season-end awards. The league’s association with the Kia program began in the 2007-2008 season. The other NBA awards sponsored by Kia are the Defensive Player, Most Valuable Player, and Most Improved Player awards.
Odom enjoyed an excellent season with the Lakers as he played an average of 28.4 minutes in each game as a sub and racked up a 13.0 scoring average to go along with 7.5 rebounds. He also scored a dozen double-doubles when coming off of the bench as a sub. Overall, he played an average of 32.2 minutes with a 14.4 scoring average, 3.0 assists, and 8.7 rebounds with a shooting average of .530. He scored a total of 28 double-doubles and managed to reach double digits in scoring in 63 games. He also scored a minimum of 20 points in 14 games.
NBA betting sites are heating up at this time of the year as the first round of the playoffs are in full swing. Odom and his Lakers’ teammates currently have their hands full with the New Orleans Hornets. The Lakers took all four regular season games from the Hornets, but NBA bets are coming in pretty regularly banking on a Hornets upset.
