The NBA season is just about wrapped up, giving way to a magical couple of weeks where endless debates over which players merit which awards ensue. It just wouldn't be April without this tradition.

That being said, this article will look at Fred VanVleet's case for the Sixth Man of the Year award.

Shoutout to DeRozan for the article idea.

What is a Sixth Man?

The Sixth Man of the Year award is given to the NBA's best performing player coming off the bench.

The player in consideration doesn't have to be his team's first substitute per se, though this has typically been the case since the award's inception in the 1982-1983 season. The only real qualifier for the award is that the player in consideration must have come off the bench in more games than he started.

Even though the minimal requirements for the award seem straight-forward, they foster an environment which enables the spirit of the award to be bent... it becomes less about a team's best bench player and more about a team's best player that doesn't start.

Under the current guidelines for Sixth Man of the Year voting, a guy who starts 40 games for his team could still be considered for the award, as could a player that logs more minutes than his team's starters. Situations like these arise often enough when it comes to players being considered for the award (looking at you Lou Williams, cough cough) and they essentially push the boundary for how bench players are defined.

This is the argument against VanVleet's main competition for Sixth Man of the Year.

VanVleet's Competition

While Lou Williams is a phenomenal basketball player and is considered by many to be the runaway winner of this year's Sixth Man of the Year award, he's less of a bench player than a starter.

Yes, Williams is having arguably his best career season putting up nearly 23 points per game and leading his team in assists with just over five. Yes, he's also leading his team in three-pointers taken and made, and is largely responsible for the league's eighth-best offence.

Nobody is arguing that Williams isn't a good player. The argument against Lou is that he's averaging 32.8 minutes per game and has logged over 2,500 minutes this season. He's been pivotal to the Clippers' success and has allowed them to chase the playoffs in a year when the team could've been completely counted out following the departures of Chris Paul and Blake Griffin.

While Williams usually comes off the bench, his significance is comparable to that of a starter. He isn't the best player off the bench for the Clippers, he's straight up their best player. It's no coincidence that ESPN lists Williams as a starter in their depth chart for the Clippers.

The Case for VanVleet

Even if you don't buy into the whole 'if he looks like a starter and plays like a starter, then he's probably a starter' argument, Steady Freddy makes a pretty strong case for Sixth Man of the Year in his own right.

To start, he fits the bill for the award perfectly. He hasn't started a single game, he's only been averaging 20.2 minutes per contest off the bench, and he's been Toronto's most consistent option off the pine.

MP	FG	FGA	FG%	3P	3PA	3P%	FT	FTA	FT%	TRB	AST	STL	BLK	TOV	PF	PTS
20.2	3.1	7.3	.430	1.5	3.5	.420	1.1	1.3	.837	2.5	3.2	0.9	0.2	0.9	1.7	8.9

Offensively, VanVleet looks exactly like his mentor Kyle Lowry. They both take care of the ball, can get into the lane almost at will, and are superb three-point shooters. To his credit, VanVleet actually leads the team in accuracy from beyond the arc, converting on 42 percent of his attempts.

VanVleet is also a tenacious defender. He moves his feet exceptionally well and is great at closing off lanes to the basket. If he were a bit taller he'd likely get more credit for his defensive ability.

It's only his second-year in the league and VanVleet has already taken charge of the best bench in the NBA on the Eastern Conference's best team. John Schuhmann notes that VanVleet leads the league in plus-minus off the bench. The Raptors are cruising towards a franchise record for wins and VanVleet's ability to keep the pressure on opposing team's when Lowry rests has been crucial.

VanVleet's been so good leading the second unit that the bench is often used to close out games. Freddy, in particular, has played more minutes in the fourth-quarter than any other Raptor, per William Lou. He's been rock-solid in critical moments down the stretch.

It's this unshakeable consistency that's earned VanVleet the Steady Freddy monicker, and it's this consistency that underscores his case for Sixth Man of the Year. He may not score as much as Lou Williams, but by doing a bit of everything he's made himself the backbone of Toronto's now infamous bench mob.

Most teams have less than a handful of games left on the schedule. For Lou Williams, these next few games might be his last chance to play this season, whereas Steady Freddy will no doubt continue performing into the playoffs.

This year's NBA awards will be given out on June 25th.

All stats courtesy of Basketball-Reference and NBA.com, unless otherwise stated.