ORLANDO - While Paolo Banchero should be a lock to win the Rookie of the Year award, there’s another Orlando Magic player that should at least be in the conversation for one of the other individual honors.
Cole Anthony is making a late-season Sixth Man of the Year push. Unlike the ROY award, this race feels wide open with two weeks remaining in the regular season.
For the season, the 6-foot-3 guard is averaging 12.9 points, 4.7 rebounds and 3.9 assists. But lately, his scoring and rebounding numbers are up. In March – encompassing 13 games so far – Anthony is averaging 16.5 points on 48.1 percent overall shooting and 43.4 percent 3-point shooting.
He has posted 20-plus points three times this month, including on Sunday in a win over the Brooklyn Nets when he racked up a team-high 21.
“My belief system – my teammates have been believing in me,” he said recently. “They have been giving me the ball in situations where I’ve been confident enough to score and make shots. And vice versa – it’s been the same thing. We as a unit have really started to play well together.”
Anthony has been a far more efficient scorer this year than either of his first two in the NBA. He’s shooting just a shade under 45 percent from the field and a shade over 36 percent from beyond the arc. He’s also shooting just under 90 percent from the charity stripe.
Just 22 years old, Anthony is still in the early stages of his development. But the progress he has made is quite significant and it should factor in to his SMOY case.
Boston’s Malcolm Brogdon, Dallas’ Christian Wood, Sacramento’s Malik Monk, the Clippers’ Norman Powell, Indiana’s Bennedict Mathurin, Milwaukee’s Bobby Portis, the Lakers’ Austin Reaves, and New York's Immanuel Quickley are among the top candidates for this honor.
None of them have done enough to this point to declare victory, however.
Brogdon, Monk, Portis, and Quickley are playing on teams that have won a lot more than they have lost, which is an obvious advantage. But if the Magic end their season strong and Anthony stays hot, then perhaps we will start hearing his name more and more in this award discussion.