Over his first six seasons, all with the Minnesota Timberwolves, Naz Reid has been mostly utilized off the bench. Despite rarely starting, he has remained rather productive, particularly in the last two seasons. The 6-foot-9 big man won Sixth Man of the Year in 2023-24 and finished fifth in voting last season. ESPN’s Summer Forecast projects that Reid will once again be one of the league’s better sixth men in 2025-26.
Naz Reid has been one of the more productive bench players
Every summer, ESPN comes out with its NBA Summer Forecast. It began on Monday, and on Tuesday, they had their NBA insiders make predictions on the major award winners for the 2025-26 season.
Each first-place vote received five points, a second-place vote received three points, and third-place vote received one point. When it came to the Sixth Man of the Year voting, Reid finished second with 52 points.
Scoring is often looked at when it comes to the Sixth Man of the Year (think Jamal Crawford and Lou Williams), and the 26-year-old Reid (turned it today, August 26) scores with the best of them off the bench. He averaged a career-best 14.2 points last season and 13.5 in the year he took home Sixth Man of the Year.
He has become more of a stretch big over his last two breakout seasons as well. Reid has connected on 39.5% of his three-point tries in the last two years after making 34.4% in his first four.
Once again, Reid should be receiving borderline starter minutes. He has averaged playing more than half the game in the last two seasons, including a career-high 27.5 minutes per contest in 2024-25.
Will Alex Caruso score enough to be in consideration?
The winner of the vote is Thunder guard Alex Caruso. The 31-year-old garnered 66 points, 14 more than Reid.
Last season was Caruso’s first with the Thunder, and it culminated with a championship. The issue with believing he can win the award is on a deep team, he may not receive the necessary minutes to put up the box score numbers that would sway voters.
As mentioned, this is often a scorer’s award, and Caruso averaged just 7.1 points last season. After eight years in the NBA, his 2024-25 season with the Bulls is the only season where he averaged double figures in scoring (10.1). While he’s certainly an elite defender, the Thunder have numerous guys off the bench deserving of playing time, which may eat away at some of Caruso’s minutes.
Coming in third in the voting is Nickeil Alexander-Walker with 39 points. He is, of course, the former teammate of Reid, but he joined the Hawks this offseason in free agency.