Keldon Johnson has won the 2025-26 Sixth Man of the Year award, the NBA announced Wednesday. Johnson is the second major award winner for the Spurs this season, joining Victor Wembanyama, who won Defensive Player of the Year unanimously on Monday. Though Wembanyama’s victory has seemingly been destined since before he reached the NBA, Johnson’s path to the Sixth Man of the Year award took several unexpected turns.
Johnson was the No. 29 pick in the 2020 NBA Draft and quickly emerged as a key player for San Antonio. He was a full-time starter by his second season and won a gold medal playing for Team USA at the Tokyo Olympics after that. By his fourth season, he averaged 22 points per game, but did so for a Spurs team going nowhere.
That changed when the Spurs won the No. 1 pick in the 2023 NBA Draft, landing Wembanyama. San Antonio’s long-term plans shifted from there and, midway through the 2023-24 season, then-Spurs coach Gregg Popovich approached Johnson about a move to the bench.
Johnson initially didn’t take it well. “I couldn’t wrap my head around it,” he explained in a recent essay for The Player’s Tribune. “And ultimately, I didn’t take it well. I sulked. I let the outside noise affect my play. I didn’t present the best version of myself as I was coming off the bench for the rest of that season. And I knew that I was much better than that.”
Over time, he would ultimately find his place on San Antonio’s bench. This season, he averaged 13.2 points per game as a reserve, chipping in 5.4 rebounds and strong defense for the 62-20 Spurs while appearing in all 83 games (including the NBA Cup final). Johnson’s 1,081 bench points set a franchise record, passing Manu Ginóbili, who scored 927 when he won Sixth Man of the Year in the 2007-08 season. Now Johnson is a critical component of a championship contender both on the court and in the locker room, and he joins Ginóbili, a San Antonio icon, as the only Spurs players to win this award.
Only Jaime Jaquez Jr. scored more total points off the bench this season than Johnson, and only Naz Reid pulled in more rebounds. Jaquez finished second in the voting with 331 total points. Johnson had 404, including 63 of the 100 first-place votes. Jaquez received 34 first-place votes.
