Ex-Clipper Voted Top Sixth Man

Rodney Rogers, soured by years of losing with the Clippers, capped his season of renewal Monday as the overwhelming choice for the NBA’s sixth man award.

The Phoenix Sun forward received 104 of a possible 121 votes from a panel of sports writers and sportscasters.

“It’s sort of like Shaq for MVP,” Sun Coach Scott Skiles said, referring to Laker center Shaquille O’Neal’s expected runaway with that award. “I almost feel like, how could anybody vote for anyone else?”

Rogers received 86% of the votes, the second-largest percentage in the 18 years the sixth man award has been presented. Cliff Robinson, now Rogers’ teammate, received 90.8% of the votes for the award when he was with the Portland Trail Blazers in 1992-93.

Houston Rocket guard Cuttino Mobley was second in the voting.

Rogers, who signed a free-agent contract with Phoenix for the $2 million exception allowed over the salary cap, averaged 13.8 points and 5.5 rebounds in 27.9 minutes per game for the Suns.

Four unhappy seasons with the Clippers left Rogers embittered and disillusioned, attitudes that vanished once he joined the Suns.

Rogers’ bad experience in Los Angeles turned worse in his final season, when he was relegated to sparse playing time off the bench.

“They were trying to do whatever they could to hurt me,” he said of the Clippers, “so I had to just sit there and rot until the season was over. I was just glad there were a lot of teams interested in me and Phoenix stepped up to the plate.”

*

Miami Heat point guard Tim Hardaway said his sprained left foot has improved, but he was still unsure if he will play in Sunday’s Game 1 of the best-of-seven Eastern Conference semifinal series against the New York Knicks.

“”I’m doing every day what I need to do for my foot to feel good,” Hardaway said. “If I’m not effective, I won’t play. I’m not going to jeopardize my team. We’ll see with a couple days of practice.”