NBA Awards Rankings: New No. 1 in Sixth Man of the Year race

The Sacramento Kings are starting to pick up steam, currently 21-13 and fifth place in the highly competitive Western Conference. While attention is naturally directed to De'Aaron Fox and Domantas Sabonis, Malik Monk has been on a heater lately. He scored 37 points on 12-of-20 shooting with nine assists in Sacramento's OT victory over Orlando on Wednesday. A statement game from the new frontrunner.

Monk is built for this particular award. He is the NBA's most entertaining bench spark plug — a dynamic, ultra-confident scorer capable of gravity-defying displays of athleticism and torrential shot-making stretches. This award is typically reserved for the bench scoring guards who get a ton of shots up. It helps when that player is both efficient and malleable. Monk can operate with or without the ball and he is plainly one of the best 3-point shooters in the NBA right now.

For the season, Monk is averaging 14.9 points and 5.3 assists (2.2 turnovers) on .448/.420/.878 splits in 25.4 minutes. He is shooting 58 percent at the rim as a 6-foot-3 guard. He is also in the 91st percentile on corner 3s (52 percent), per Cleaning the Glass. There simply isn't a more impactful offensive bench player in the NBA. Defense counts too, of course, but Monk's ability to operate as both creator and finisher — while playing better defense than a couple names on this list — should earn him true contender status as award conversations heat up.

Monk benefits, of course, from the perfect setup. He's playing alongside his college teammate in Fox, in a Kings offense that is designed to generate clean looks from deep and push the tempo. If the Kings keep surging in the West, expect Monk's candidacy to gain steam from here.