DALLAS – Mavericks guard Jason Terry is the best off the bench.
The former University of Arizona star, who took on a different role for Dallas the past two seasons, was presented Friday with the NBA sixth man award that goes to the league’s top reserve.
This is the second NBA postseason award garnered by a former Arizona Wildcat. Damon Stoudamire won Rookie-of-the-Year honors in 1995-96.
While starting only 11 of his 74 games in the regular season, Terry averaged 19.6 points and 3.4 assists while playing about 34 minutes a game.
The only time Terry had a higher scoring average was 2000-01, his second NBA season, when he averaged 19.7 points for Atlanta.
After starting only 27 games as a rookie, Terry started 531 of his 563 games for the Hawks and Mavericks from 2000-07. Terry averaged 15.5 points for Dallas last season, when he started 34 times but was the only Mavericks player to get into every game.
In his senior season at Arizona, Terry won the Pac-10 Player of the Year award, was a first team All-American selection by the Associated Press and was a finalist for the John R. Wooden Player of the Year award. Terry was the first player in Arizona history to score over 1,000 points and have over 200 career steals.
Terry ranks 18th on the all-time Arizona scoring list with 1,461 points. He was named National Player of the Year by three different outlets including Sports Illustrated, CBS/Chevrolet and Rawlings/Basketball Times in 1999.
The Seattle native served as Arizona’s sixth man on the 1997 national championship team and his overall career record through four seasons in Tucson was 103-28.