This season’s Sixth Man of the Year award race is going to be wide open. It usually is, of course, due to the ambiguity of the criteria for the award. Usually, it goes to a bench player for a playoff team that is a high-volume scorer. Players like Jamal Crawford and Lou Williams have dominated the award recently, thanks to generous green lights allowing them to create offense in high volume off the bench.
This year’s crop, however, doesn’t really have a well-defined favorite that fits those lines. Williams and Eric Gordon seemed to be the front-runners early on, but the Rockets’ trade for Williams at the deadline somewhat threw the race off-kilter, and created opportunities for other players who don’t fit that traditional volume scoring guard mold to be thrown into the discussion. You can make a case for David Lee, who is having a renaissance as a bench big for the Spurs. Joe Ingles is having one of the most weirdly efficient seasons ever for the Jazz. You can make a case of “best bench player on the best team,” and put Andre Iguodala into the mix. But one player has been quietly churning out a Sixth Man-level season, who hasn’t really gotten the same buzz for the award: Greg Monroe of the Milwaukee Bucks.
Monroe has come off the bench in 66 games this year behind John Henson and Thon Maker. His raw counting stats have been fairly pedestrian: 11.8 points, 6.6 rebounds, and 2.3 assists per game in 22.7 minutes, and 52.8 percent shooting from the field. But don’t let the numbers fool you — Monroe has been having perhaps the strongest year of his career. And the impact he’s had on this young Bucks team can be seen all over the floor.
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It is especially prevalent offensively. Milwaukee has been 7.3 points per 100 possessions better with Monroe on the floor this season, and 7.9 points better since the All-Star break — meaning they score at about the level of the Cavaliers’ third-ranked offense when he plays, and the Bulls’ 24th-ranked offense when he sits.
Monroe’s biggest impact on the Bucks’ offense has been with his passing. He’s averaging 3.6 assists per 36 minutes, and he’s been incredible at finding ways to get Milwaukee’s multiple cutters open looks at the rim. Much like Marc Gasol in Memphis or LaMarcus Aldridge in San Antonio, Monroe’s gravity as a one-on-one scorer from the elbow draws attention from multiple defenders.
Now Milwaukee has finally harnessed that gravity by playing Monroe as a solo big. Monroe’s 30 most-used lineups this season have all featured him playing with Jabari Parker, Mirza Teletovic, or Michael Beasley at the four. In these lineups the Bucks are essentially playing a modified five-out lineup when Monroe gets the ball at the elbow — meaning the lane is completely free for cuts for Monroe to find.
Plays like this, where Brogdon sets a decoy screen to free up Teletovic’s cut, are commonplace in Milwaukee’s playbook. That’s because if you over-play the cut, Monroe can also just find the screener on a flare to the three-point line.
Monroe’s assist rate of 16.7 percent ranks him seventh among qualified bigs this season, and only Boris Diaw sports a better rate as a bench big. His passing has more than made up for Middleton’s absence and Matthew Dellavedova’s struggles at point guard, helping to invert the floor and make defenses willingly sacrifice help defense from their big men. Of course, none of this would be a threat if Monroe wasn’t also having a brilliantly efficient season scoring the ball.
Monroe’s output (18.8 points per 36 minutes) hasn’t changed much, but he’s scoring from more effective spots this year, and doing so more efficiently. He’s posting up about 2.9 percent less often this year, and scoring 0.05 points per possession more. His shots from the no-man’s land of the paint (3-10 feet) are down, and shots from inside three feet, where he’s a 60.8 percent finisher, are up. This cuts down on the post-ups to nowhere that plagued Detroit and Milwaukee offenses in the past when Monroe was on the floor. The added space of playing as the primary big means that he’s getting more chances to put his head down and drive to the rim if he can beat his man to the edge.
Monroe has also been excellent away from the hoop, shooting 45.2 percent from beyond 16 feet and a lethal 52.9 percent from 10-16 feet. These are both career-highs by a significant margin, and they provide the threat to get Monroe that gravity that his passing revolves around.
That Monroe has been having this efficient offensive season is promising, especially given how poor the Bucks’ offense was at times in Monroe’s first go-around in Milwaukee. But even more surprising has been Monroe’s defense. Long the butt of a joke because of his slow feet and inconsistent effort, Monroe has earned the label as a plodding defensive sieve. But this year, the Bucks are actually 1.4 points better per 100 possessions when Monroe’s on the floor. There are two reasons for this. One is the presence of Antetokounmpo, with whom the Bucks are 4.0 points/100 possessions better defensively when he and Monroe share the floor. Giannis essentially acts as the Bucks’ rim protector, and he can cover for a lot when Monroe’s slow-footed perimeter defense means there’s a free big rolling to the rim.
The other reason is that Monroe has embraced the Bucks’ decision to just create chaos and sacrifice some efficient shots in the name of turnovers. The Bucks gamble a ton, and Monroe’s been a part of that, with shockingly good results. He has 82 steals on the season, and while his feet are slow, his anticipation and length help him still play passing lanes at a high level, creating transition opportunities like this.
Greg Monroe signed a $50 million contract with the Bucks in the summer of 2015, and through one year, it looked like an absolute bust. But some tweaks to the way the Bucks have used him, and his acceptance of a reduced role, have paid incredible dividends as the 2016-2017 season has worn on. Monroe’s impact on both ends of the floor has been incredible, so much so that he deserves to be in the perennially wide-open 6th man of the year vote. If Milwaukee can obtain the 6 seed (they’re only 1.5 games out), Monroe will have been a big reason why. He deserves to be in the conversation for this award.