TIMBERWOLVES FORWARD NAZ REID NAMED NBA SIXTH MAN OF THE YEAR

Minnesota Timberwolves big man Naz Reid is the winner of the John Havlicek Trophy as the 2023-24 NBA Sixth Man of the Year, it was announced on TNT’s Inside the NBA on Wednesday night.

The former New Jersey high school star became the first Timberwolves player to win the award.

The fan favorite earned the league’s highest honor for a bench player, a culmination of all the transformative work Reid — who was undrafted out of LSU in 2019 — put in to become one of the NBA’s best developmental success stories. He signed a three-year, $42 million extension last July for his efforts.

Naz became the third undrafted player to win the award, joining John Starks in 1997 and Darrell Armstrong in 1999.

Reid this season averaged 13.5 points on 47.7/41.4/73.6 shooting, 5.2 rebounds, 1.3 assists, 0.9 blocks and 0.8 steals across 24.2 minutes per game in 81 appearances (14 starts). His scoring, rebounding, assisting, thievery, and availability were all career-highs.

A true embodiment of what it means to be a next-man-up Sixth Man in the NBA, Reid raised his level when starting 4 Karl-Anthony Towns tore his left meniscus on March 4 against the Portland Trail Blazers. In 19 games without Towns this season, Reid averaged 17.3 points on 47.4/41.9/72.0 shooting splits, 6.5 rebounds, 2.1 assists, 1.3 steals and 1.3 blocks across 28.5 minutes per game. No Timberwolf out-scored his season average with Towns in the lineup more than Reid. When you combine points plus rebounds plus assists, Naz’s +7.7 PRA difference without KAT vs. with KAT was 3.3 better than the next highest, Jordan McLaughlin’s +4.4 PRA mark.

While his opportunity skyrocketed, he maintained the same great efficiency at which he produced coming off the bench, while actually improving his assist-to-turnover ratio in an more involved role. Not only that, but the way Reid raised his level of play also kept the Timberwolves in the thick of the race for the No. 1 seed up until the very last day of the regular season, something very few thought the Wolves could do once Towns went down.

Reid earning this award is a sign of the national media and fans across the NBA beginning to recognize everything that has made the former five-star recruit a folk hero in Minnesota. The guard-like handles. The explosive athleticism. The thunderous dunks. The outrageous layup package. The knack for draining 3-pointers in critical moments. The Naz Reid Games™.

He was also the recipient of quite possibly the greatest NBA giveaway in the history of NBA giveaways: Naz Reid Towel Night

Timberwolves play-by-play man Michael Grady said it best, while all the fans in attendance raised their towels up late in a win over the Cleveland Cavaliers on March 22.

“This is wild. As strong a love affair as one player can have with a fanbase.”

There’s a lot that we’ll all remember about the 2023-24 Minnesota Timberwolves, but the Naz Reid renaissance is very high on the list.

TWO WORDS.

NAZ REID.

2024-04-24T22:47:18Z dg43tfdfdgfd