LA Clippers forward-center Montrezl Harrell has won the 2019-20 NBA Hustle Award, which honors the player that makes the energy and effort plays to help his team win throughout the season.
What were often referred to as intangibles – diving on the floor for loose balls, sacrificing your body by taking charges, boxing out, setting great screens, deflecting passes and contesting shots – are now measurable stats. While these actions may not appear in the traditional box score, they are imperative to team success on a nightly basis.
Harrell is a player that has exemplified hustle since he first entered the NBA in 2015. He plays with an infectious energy and uses his combination of strength, athleticism and determination to outwork his opponents. Standing 6-7 and 240 pounds, Harrell has frequently been called undersized for his position and used the criticism he heard about his game as motivation.
“It still drives me to this day because I hear all the outside noise of what I can’t do every day,” Harrell told the Inside the NBA crew after being named the Kia NBA Sixth Man as the top bench player in the league. “I fuel and feed off of things like that and if people haven’t really realized that then keep adding fuel to the fire. I come into the game looking to just work and do everything I can to put myself in a position to not only better myself, but better my teammates and better the people that surround me. My work speaks for itself.”
Harrell’s work has brought him from a seldom used reserve player, that requested to be sent down to the G League in order to get some playing time and work on his game, to an integral piece on a team with championship aspirations in the 2020 postseason.
This season, Harrell averaged career highs in points (18.6 PPG), rebounds (7.1 RPG) and minutes played (27.8 MPG). But it is the numbers that don’t appear in the traditional box score that earned him the fourth-annual NBA Hustle Award.
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