Another regular season in the NBA. Gone. Done. It seems like just yesterday everyone was jumping on the Milwaukee Bucks and Houston Rockets bandwagons in the usual pre-season miscues by the self-proclaimed "experts". The season has come and passed, with us now entering day 4 of the NBA Playoffs.

As always, with the end of the regular season comes the end of the year awards. Just recently, the NBA 6th Man Award was given to the Lakers F Lamar Odom. But did he deserve it? Lets break down the stats with Lamar against the 4 other candidates that he edged out.

Those other candidates were Dallas Maverick G Jason Terry, Boston Celtic F Glen "Big Baby" Davis, Oklahoma City F James Harden along with Philadelphia 76er F Thaddeus Young.

Lamar Odom- 14.4 ppg and 8.7 rpg along with shooting 53% from the field, for the 57-25 LA Lakers.

Jason Terry- 15.8 ppg and 4.1 apg for the 57-25 Dallas Mavericks.

Glen Davis- 11.7 ppg and 5.4 rpg along with leading the league in charges taken for the 56-26 Boston Celtics.

James Harden- 12.2 ppg and 3.1 rpg for the 55-27 Oklahoma City Thunder

Thaddeus Young- 12.7 ppg and 5.3 rpg for the 41-41 Philadelphia 76ers.

You could argue with the selection committee a little bit about this one and maybe make a case for Jason Terry from the Dallas Mavericks, but for the most part I think the NBA finally got this one right. Lamar Odom plays for a stellar LA Lakers club and he deserves this award.

But keep this in mind, Lamar Odom started 35 games in the regular season, so that, in my opinion, gives Odom an unfair advantage over the rest of the players. But it does directly say in the rulebook, that all you need to do in order to qualify for the 6th Man of the Year Award, is come off the bench more games than you start, which Lamar Odom did.

Congratulations to Lamar Odom, and also Dwight Howard who won his 3rd consecutive DPOY (Defensive Player of the Year Award) earlier this week as well.

You heard it here first, at The Sports Guru


Picture complement of http://gossip.whyfame.com/files/2009/09/lamar_odom2.jpg