Looking at previous winners, the award is rarely given to a top seeded team, and pretty consistently given to a 50+ win team - something we're on good pace for.
There are a lot of teams ahead of Boston in terms of total bench scoring most of which are not even sniffing the playoffs right now - Philly, Phoenix, Miami, LAL, Denver, Orlando, BKN, New Orleans. Some of the others are fringe playoff teams.
Smart is currently averaging about 10 pts, 4 rebs, 4 assists. Looking at nba.com's coverage of 6MOTY winners, nobody gives a steaming fuck about advanced stats, so raw production and a lot of minutes played are highly beneficial.
Smart is currently 3rd on the team in +/- behind Crowder and Horford. He ranks 66th in the league according to http://ift.tt/2j0CHHP - where many of the players listed ahead of him are starters and therefore not in the 6moty conversation, and some bench players who don't pack the box score like Smart.
Improved shooting, elite defense blah blah blah. Plays a lot of minutes, vastly improved playmaking this year
What he still needs: A few more breakout games like the last one. I think the voters like the fact that Jamal Crawford, a 3 time 6moty, would randomly go off for 30+. Marcus is less likely to hit 30 but still adds more in the way of rebounding and assists that Jamal usually would.
If Evan Turner was in the conversation last year, then I think Smart has a legitimate case this year.
Submitted January 09, 2017 at 12:58PM by TheNotoriousJTS