Perhaps the competition for this year's Sixth Man of the Year is relatively fierce, so the announcement was made a little later, and it was not announced until May that it was announced along with the results of the regular season MVP. Pen ~ fun ~ pavilion www.biquge.info

The Thunder's Durant won the regular season MVP trophy, which didn't come as much of a surprise to the outside world, and this season, Durant has been the favorite to win the regular season MVP. After all, the Thunder have an excellent record this season, and Durant's stats are equally impressive.

This season, the Thunder have the second-highest record in the league, behind the Spurs, while Durant scored a career-high 32.0 points, 7.4 points and 5.5 assists, also a career-high. After winning his fourth scoring title, he became the only player to win the scoring title four times after Jordan (10), Chamberlain (7), Gervin (4) and Iverson (4). Durant shot 50.3 percent from the field, 39.1 percent from three-point range and 80.5 percent from the free-throw line. This season, Durant has scored more than 50 points twice and over 40 points 14 times.

Durant's selection advantage in the MVP is very obvious, and even James, who won the regular season MVP in the previous two seasons, is much less competitive.

In the competition for the best sixth man, the competition between Li Yang and Crawford is very fierce, and there are many people on both sides, and Li Yang is actually at a disadvantage in the competition because he has already got the most improved player before.

However, after the first round of the playoffs, the voices supporting Li Yang prevailed.

In the four games against the Mavericks in the first round, Li Yang averaged 19.5 points, 6.0 rebounds and 4.0 assists per game, compared with 16.5 points, 5.8 rebounds and 3.5 assists in the regular season.

On the other hand, Crawford averaged 16.5 points, 1.3 rebounds and 1.5 assists per game in the first round of the playoffs, down from 18.6 points, 2.3 rebounds and 3.2 assists in the regular season.

Although it is said that the best sixth man of the regular season is selected this time, it is difficult for those media reporters to vote without being affected by such a comparison.

In the end, out of 125 votes, Li Yang received 67 first-place votes and scored a total of 509 points to become the highest-scoring player, and Crawford, who received 49 first-place votes and scored a total of 395 points, became the best sixth man of the season.

In doing so, Li Yang also became the first player in history to win both the Best Sixth Man and the Most Improved Player award!

After the league announced the news, Spurs officials, San Toonio media, and Chinese media announced the news as soon as possible, and Li Yang also received congratulations from teammates, fans and friends.

Inya, Frida, Whiteside, Jermichael-Green and others all called to congratulate them.

Even Popovich jokingly chatted with Li Yang about the discussion about the best sixth man at the beginning of the season during the team's training, and in Popovich's words: "Yang, see, what I promised you at the beginning of the season, has now been done." ”

"Pop, are you sure you didn't say at the beginning of the season that I was going to be the Sixth Man of the Year to appease me?

Faced with Li Yang's question, Popovich replied without blushing and heartbeat: "But the fact is that the trophy is already in your hands." ”

Li Yang was speechless.

Of course, Li Yang also has to admit that Popovich did give himself a lot of freedom to attack, which is an important reason why he was able to finally lift the Best Sixth Man trophy.

After Li Yang won the two awards of Most Improved Player and Best Sixth Man, plus Popovich's best head coach, the Spurs have won three regular season awards this year, which is naturally a great recognition of their outstanding performance in the regular season, but for the Spurs to win such three awards, the happiest are not Spurs fans, but Heat or Thunder fans.

"Thank you to the league for awarding all three awards to the Spurs, this is the best news we have heard this season. ”

"Ah, the Spurs won the best head coach, the best sixth man and the most improved player at the same time?

"Did these three awards go together, and why did I hear them so high?"

The fans of these two teams are not only happy, but can even be described as gloating. On the contrary, there are many Spurs fans who are lamenting that they are extremely worried about the team getting these trophies.

This sounds very strange, and as for the reasons, an article can summarize them.

"Defending the title encounters four curses, can the Spurs create a miracle?"

This report from Sports Illustrated summarizes the hot issues that fans are concerned about:

"When we talk about whether or not the Spurs can defend their title this season, I think we have to look at how difficult it is for them to do that, not from the Thunder or the Heat, but from the curses that are very famous in the NBA, and there will be four curses that the Spurs will have to face. ”

"Curse one, the best manager doesn't win the championship. In the NBA, there are many curses, there is no doubt that the best coach is one of the most famous, since the establishment of the 1962-1963 season of the annual head coach award, 41 coaches have been honorably elected in 52 years, but the only one who can win the championship in the same season is Greg Popovich in 2003, 1:50, what a disparity, including the Spurs in the 11-12 season, in that year Greg Popovich won the best coach, and then was eliminated by the Thunder in the Western Conference finals。 Will Greg Popovich be able to break the spell again this year?"

"Curse two, the Spurs don't win the championship for even years. Yes, we've talked about it too much, the Spurs have never won a championship in even-numbered years, '04, '06, '08, '12, they all have the quality to challenge for a championship, but every time they miss out on a championship, what about 14 years?"

"Spell three, the most improved player doesn't win the championship. The MIP Awards were established in 1986, and prior to last season, a total of 27 players had been elected, including superstars such as Kevin Johnson, Tracy McGrady, Gilbert Arenas, and Jermaine O'Neal, but none of those elected players were able to wear championship rings before last season. The Spurs broke that spell last season with T-MAC and Burrest Dior, both of whom were once Most Improved Player award winners. But even then, there has never been a player who has won a championship while winning the most improved player, so would Young be the exception?"

"Spell four, the best sixth man doesn't win the championship. The last time a player on the team won the SMOY (Sixth Man of the Year) trophy and also won the championship was the 72-10 Bulls in the '95-96 season, where Tony Cookic won the Sixth Man of the Year trophy and then won the championship under the basketball gods. However, since that season, in nearly 20 years, no team has been able to lift the O'Brien Cup at the same time as the Best Sixth Man trophy, including the Spurs in the 07-08 season, where Manu Ginobili won the Sixth Man of the Year and won the championship the previous season, which is almost exactly the same as the Spurs this season, but in the end they were eliminated by the Lakers in the Western Conference Finals, can the Spurs break this curse?

"Yes, we have every reason to believe that this Spurs team is very strong, but we have to admit that some things are just so magical, we have seen Spurs break the curse, but we have also seen Spurs exit in such a curse. When the Spurs, who were unstoppable in the regular season, run into the four curses that stood in their way, will the Spurs be able to successfully defend their title? (To be continued.) )