Updated NBA Sixth Man of the Year award odds, best bets, top sleeper & more to know about this year’s race

Updated NBA Sixth Man of the Year award odds, best bets, top sleeper & more to know about this year’s race

As the NBA surges toward the home stretch, with only 30 percent of the regular season remaining, awards races have started to heat up. As we analyze Sixth Man of the Year, taking a look at the updated odds and assess which players yield the most value for the NBA’s most outstanding bench player.

Last year was a two-man race, with the Celtics’ Malcolm Brogdon ultimately prevailing over the Knicks’ Immanuel Quickley. Both those players have since been traded, and neither even appears on the 2024 Sixth Man of the Year field on BetMGM’s futures board.

So, we know we’ll be looking at a new winner. And while the Kings’ Malik Monk (-130) currently serves as the only player with negative odds, the Mavericks’ Tim Hardaway Jr. (+375) and Clippers’ Norm Powell (+450) both have implied win probabilities between 18 and 22 percent.

We’ve seen other award races tilt from one direction to another during the final two months of the season, so this race appears to be far from over. Let’s take a closer look at the 2023-24 NBA Sixth Man of the Year odds on BetMGM and discuss which options are worth your betting while.

NBA Sixth Man of the Year 2024 odds

All odds are from BetMGM, an authorizing gaming operator of the NBA.

All odds as of Feb. 27

NBA Sixth Man of the Year 2024: Best Bets

Malik Monk, Kings (-130)

Monk seems like the perfect candidate to come down with this season’s Sixth Man of the Year honors. He’s a microwave scorer who injects energy into the Kings’ second unit, while also maintaining a tremendous rapport with De’Aaron Fox, Domantas Sabonis, and the rest of Mike Brown’s starters. He has played 56 of Sacramento’s 57 games, zero of which he started, but he closes out games more than any other bench player in the league.

Monk has a multifaceted skill set — he ranks top five in bench scoring (15.1 PPG) and top three in bench assists (5.3 APG), he can throw it down at the rim with authority or light it up from beyond the three-point arc. His shooting splits of 44.8/36.7/81.1 alone will have him one of the most highly coveted role players in free agency this summer.

Monk plays a crucial role on a very good Kings team. If he keeps up his current numbers and Sacramento maintains its status as a top-six or seven team in the loaded West, he seems like the man to beat. If you’re making a bet on Sixth Man of the Year, you can’t do better than Monk.

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Tim Hardaway Jr., Mavericks (+375)

Hardaway is very much a part of this awards race. He averages 17.1 points per game, trailing only former Sixth Man winner Jordan Clarkson for most among bench players. He’s a spark plug from deep, averaging over three 3-pointers per game and absorbing some of the scoring when Luka Doncic and/or Kyrie Irving are off the floor.

However, we have some trouble envisioning Hardaway taking this award from Monk. For one, he has started 10 games, a few more starts and we could be looking at rehashing last year’s debate between Brogdon and Quickley (Brogdon didn’t start at all last season, while IQ started 21 games). Hardaway also doesn’t do anything but score — he’s a below-average defender and he doesn’t even average two assists per game.

Lastly, the existence of a pure-scoring superstar like Doncic on the Mavericks takes away from Hardaway a bit. As long as he’s healthy and in his prime, Doncic will be an MVP candidate. It’s rare for MVP candidates and Sixth Man of the Year winners to come from the same team. And this Mavs team is far too close record-wise to the Kings for Hardaway to prevail over the more completely bench player in Monk. As he did in 2019-20, Hardaway will have to settle for a top 5 finish.

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Norman Powell, Clippers (+450)

Powell flirted with this award last year, finishing fourth just ahead of Monk. He ranks in the top 10 in bench scoring (13.6 PPG) and no reserve player has a better three-point percentage (45.6%). He’s a big part of the Clippers’ phenomenal 37-19 season and a crowd favorite among L.A.’s second-most popular NBA franchise.

Here’s why we struggle to put money down on Norm here:

• he’s not scoring enough — ninth-most PPG among bench players won’t cut it 
• he has too many stars around him — Kawhi, PG13, Harden, Russ drown him out of most narratives
• Russ could cancel him out — Westbrook, his teammate, is fifth on the 6th Man board and could take votes away from him
• he’s not explosive like Monk — how many Norm Powell highlights have you seen this year?

For these reasons, we simply can’t get behind Powell as the Sixth Man of the Year. The Clippers are great because they have so much talent from top to bottom and they have great coaching. They don’t need Powell as much as Sacramento needs Monk, nor does Powell provide the Clippers with even a fraction of what Monk provides the Kings.

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NBA Sixth Man of the Year 2024: Best sleeper

Caris LeVert, Cavaliers (+1800)

This almost goes against our mindset with the award, as Donovan Mitchell has been close to an MVP candidate this season. But Mitchell’s not quite at the Doncic level, and this Cavs team has been so awesome that a modest wager on LeVert might make sense.

Cleveland survived multiple injuries — including starting point guard Darius Garland and elite defender Evan Mobley — in large part because LeVert has been such a steady bench presence. His averages of 14/4/4 are respectable, and if he could elevate his shooting a bit by the end of the season he could be right there in the rat race.

It’s a sleeper pick, not worth more than a $5 or $10 lotto wager, but if the Cavs close out the year strong and LeVert’s scoring in bunches, he could make you a happy bettor.