{"id":602031,"date":"2026-04-23T17:55:16","date_gmt":"2026-04-23T17:55:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/602031\/"},"modified":"2026-04-23T17:55:16","modified_gmt":"2026-04-23T17:55:16","slug":"former-kentucky-wildcat-keldon-johnson-named-nba-sixth-man-of-the-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/602031\/","title":{"rendered":"Former Kentucky Wildcat Keldon Johnson named NBA Sixth Man of the Year"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"\">A former Kentucky Wildcat was awarded with the NBA\u2019s 6th Man of the Year Award.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Keldon Johnson received the award after a season in which he averaged 13.2 points and 5.4 rebounds per game for the San Antonio Spurs, while shooting just shy of 52 percent from the floor and about 36 percent from beyond the arc.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Johnson became the first Spur in franchise history to score at least 1,000 points off the bench in a season. His 1,081 points off the bench this season were the second-most in the NBA.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">After becoming a starter early in his career with the Spurs, Johnson has flourished in his role coming off the bench in San Antonio, becoming a key piece for a Spurs team that won 62 games in the regular season and earned the 2-seed in the Western Conference.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Johnson beat out <a class=\"link \" href=\"https:\/\/sports.yahoo.com\/nba\/teams\/miami\/\" data-i13n=\"sec:content-canvas;subsec:anchor_text;elm:context_link\" data-ylk=\"slk:Miami Heat;sec:content-canvas;subsec:anchor_text;elm:context_link;itc:0\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;Miami Heat&quot;,&quot;ySubModuleName&quot;:&quot;anchor_text&quot;,&quot;yHasCommerce&quot;:false}\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Miami Heat<\/a> forward <a class=\"link \" href=\"https:\/\/sports.yahoo.com\/nba\/players\/10092\/\" data-i13n=\"sec:content-canvas;subsec:anchor_text;elm:context_link\" data-ylk=\"slk:Jaime Jaquez Jr.;sec:content-canvas;subsec:anchor_text;elm:context_link;itc:0\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;Jaime Jaquez Jr.&quot;,&quot;ySubModuleName&quot;:&quot;anchor_text&quot;,&quot;yHasCommerce&quot;:false}\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Jaime Jaquez Jr.<\/a> for the award, earning 404 total points compared to 331 for Jaquez.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Johnson is the second former Wildcat to win the 6th Man award over the last few seasons, with <a class=\"link \" href=\"https:\/\/sports.yahoo.com\/nba\/players\/6175\/\" data-i13n=\"sec:content-canvas;subsec:anchor_text;elm:context_link\" data-ylk=\"slk:Tyler Herro;sec:content-canvas;subsec:anchor_text;elm:context_link;itc:0\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;Tyler Herro&quot;,&quot;ySubModuleName&quot;:&quot;anchor_text&quot;,&quot;yHasCommerce&quot;:false}\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Tyler Herro<\/a> earning the award in 2022.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A former Kentucky Wildcat was awarded with the NBA\u2019s 6th Man of the Year Award. Keldon Johnson received&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":602032,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[255175,56235,72267,95345,8173,355,6406,6999,2116,261907,99,1022,56241,24],"class_list":{"0":"post-602031","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-2026-nba-playoffs","9":"tag-jaime-jaquez-jr","10":"tag-keldon-johnson","11":"tag-kentucky-wildcat","12":"tag-miami-heat","13":"tag-nba","14":"tag-portland-trail-blazers","15":"tag-san-antonio","16":"tag-san-antonio-spurs","17":"tag-scott-wachter-imagn","18":"tag-sports","19":"tag-texas","20":"tag-tyler-herro","21":"tag-usa"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/602031","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=602031"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/602031\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/602032"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=602031"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=602031"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=602031"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}