Prediction: Will Sixth Man of the Year Have an Impact on Moment Price?
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We haven’t yet had the chance to see how a player winning a major award will influence their moments, both in the short-term and the long-term. Award season, however, is just around the corner, so let’s take a look at what we think might happen to the winner of the Sixth Man of the Year award.
As a general rule, we’re expecting the moments of most end-of-season award winners to increase in price, both in the short-term and in the long-term. Sixth Man of the Year, however, might be a different story.
The MVP is obviously the most prestigious award – along with the Finals MVP, though that will come later on – and as a result the winner of it will likely see the biggest increases in moment price. We expect the impact of the Rookie of the Year award to be similar albeit less pronounced, and likewise the Most Improved Player. Sixth Man of the Year, however, is clearly less sought-after than these awards – not surprising given that you essentially have to not be good enough to start on the court in order to win it.
Jordan Clarkson is the runaway favourite to win it this season. His teammate Joe Ingles is the only player within touching distance, which probably tells you something about the relevance of this award given that he has started in over 35% of his games this year. So can Clarkson moment owners expect a big boost in value assuming he manages to get over the line?
Unfortunately for them, we don’t think so. Clarkson has two moments currently selling for $15 and under, and neither of them are showing any signs of trending upwards. His Series One Base Set moment only sells once or twice a day while his Lace ‘Em Up moment has been sold once since January, so we can’t gauge much from them.
Of course, this doesn’t necessarily mean that there won’t be a surge in prices after he is announced as the winner, but for most of the other probable award winners there has at least been some movement already – not so for Clarkson. This is pretty much in line with our expectations of this award. It’s largely viewed as more of a novelty than anything - you only need to look back to last season, when Montrezl Harrell was handed the trophy at a time when he was struggling to log 20 minutes a night in the Playoffs for a team he would leave a few weeks later.
As a result, it’s hard to imagine winning Sixth Man of the Year will result in much of a change to the price of Clarkson’s moments, assuming he ends up winning it. In fact, with Utah performing so well this year, if Clarkson’s moments are to see any sort of significant spike over the next few months, it’s likely to be much more to do with his Jazz team going deep into the Playoffs than him winning Sixth Man of the Year.
