THE POTENTIAL IMPACT OF THE NBA PLAYOFFS ON MOMENT PRICES, AND WHO MIGHT IT AFFECT MOST?

It’s playoffs time!

The arrival of the postseason means it’s time to get ready for a few things – stingier defense, LeBron once again turning into the best player in the world, and…an increase in the valuation of certain Top Shot moments?

Whether the latter of these actually comes to fruition remains to be seen, but there are plenty within the Top Shot community who anticipate it will – myself included. But as always, it’s going to be necessary to proceed with caution.

This potential Top Shot boom, at least in my view, won’t necessarily apply to the entire collection of moments. In fact, the playoffs could have the opposite effect on some moments, most notably those of players who will be spending them in the Bahamas. Lottery teams are quickly forgotten during the exciting months when the league’s best are battling it out, so it wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest if a lot of moments of players from such teams see a decrease in value relative to the rest of the market. After all, out of sight out of mind, and we won’t exactly be watching them drinking cocktails in the Carribean.

We will, however, be watching the playoff teams duke it out, and it’s in the players on these teams that we might be able to find some value, particularly those we think are going to advance past the first couple of rounds. Using the same out of sight out of mind concept mentioned above, the further a team advances into the playoffs the more time we spend watching them on TV, and invariably the more hype surrounds them – especially if they’re proving to be a driving force behind their team’s success.

At least, that’s what I think. I’m personally targeting players in the lead-up to the playoffs who are on teams that I think will progress to at least to the second round but ideally the Conference Finals. In particular, I’m looking at guys who might not have received due recognition during the regular season, but who likely will once all eyes are on them in the postseason. With that in mind, here’s a few examples of players I think could be worth taking a look at.

It’s worth noting that my intention for the bulk of these is to flip them further down the track – they aren’t necessarily moments that I plan to hold on to for years. Instead, I’m banking on being able to buy now, sell for a profit when hype surrounding them is at its peak – be that during the playoffs or just after – and use that profit to get into more expensive moments that I’m looking at holding for the long-term.

Bojan Bogdanovic

The Jazz have proved throughout the season that they are really good and finished the season with the best record in the league, but still they have plenty of doubters. Maybe that’s fair enough – they’re not exactly proven in the postseason and lack the star power of many other contenders, but they should be good enough to dispose of the admittedly talented but very young Grizzlies in the first round. Their most likely match-up after that is, I think, the Clippers (who face the Mavs in the first round). The Jazz are no certainty to get through that series, but I think they will at least end up as a second round team, and Bojan Bogdanovic will have a big role to play if they do.

His improvement and importance is somewhat under-recognised in what is, in fairness, a very well-rounded team. Far from the catch-and-shoot guy that many pigeon-hole him as, Bogey has a pretty deep skillset, and heads into the playoffs in great form having scored 20+ points in 13 of his last 19 regular season games.

Bogdanovic has a couple of nice moments on Top Shot which could easily rise in value if he has a good playoff series. His inaugural moment is a Series 1 buzzer-beating three, which has, for the most part, been selling for between $55 and $70 over the last couple of weeks. Other similarly priced Series 1 Top Shot debut moments include the likes of Kevin Huerter, TJ McConnell and Kelly Oubre Jr – these guys aren’t bad players, but Bogey is better and his moment is a buzzer-beater! On a team which will make noise in the playoffs, I expect him to accelerate away from them if things pan out as I outlined above.

Likewise his metallic gold dunk. It’s been gradually dropping in value since the end of April (when it was over $200) to the point where now it’s been sold for as little as $69 in the past couple of days. In terms of Series 2 Metallic Gold moments, this has him on par with Cameron Johnson, Josh Hart and again TJ McConnell. Again – he is better than these guys and should be more expensive regardless, but with him at the forefront of a contender during the playoffs the difference in price should be even more significant.

Tobias Harris

The playoff seedings couldn’t have worked out better for Philly. Having finished on top of the Eastern Conference they will deservedly get a match-up against Washington which they shouldn’t have too much trouble getting out of. After that, they could have been stuck facing off against a team like Milwaukee or Miami, but those two have conveniently fallen into 3rd and 6th respectively, meaning the 76ers second round series opponent will come out of the winner of…the Knicks and the Hawks. Hey, good on those teams for improving so much this season, but for the Sixers either one of them will be about as easy a second round kill as they could have hoped for.

Philly should walk into the Conference Finals, which means there will be plenty of eyes on the guys leading them there. Clearly Embiid tops that list, but he has been well and truly found already by the Top Shot community – his cheapest Series 1 moment is $350. Simmons will also be hoping to elevate his status this postseason, but he isn’t particularly cheap either, with his cheapest Series 1 going for comfortably over $100.

One other man who will have a big role to play in the Sixers’ playoff run is Tobias Harris. His moments aren’t super cheap, but there is certainly scope for them to increase even without the playoffs factor. Take his Cool Cats Series 2 moment, for example – the Cool Cats all have different levels of rarity which significantly affects their prices, so the only comparable moments to Harris’ (each of these has 5,000 serials) are those of John Collins, Rui Hachimura and Derrick Jones Jr. They are all at or just under $100, with both Hachimura and Jones Jr nudging out Harris for most expensive. I understand young players with scope for improvement are popular on Top Shot, but Harris is arguably better than at least two of those guys ever will be, and if he is playing a key role for Philly in the Conference Finals – or even the Finals – I imagine he will become comfortably the most expensive in this group.

Harris hasn’t had much of a chance to prove himself in the playoffs, playing just 20 postseason games in his ten seasons in the league. He should add at the very least 12 to that tally over the next couple of months, and quite possibly a lot more. Assuming the 76ers do as expected and advance through the first couple of rounds with relative ease, they will be front and centre as one of the title contenders. Harris is very, very consistent, and if he can average the 20-7-4 type stat line that he so often does while his team is establishing itself as a very real Championship threat, he could easily become a lot more popular on Top Shot.

Joe Harris

Joe Harris might literally be the ideal complement to Brooklyn’s big three. If you could create an NBA 2K player to run around with them, he would be it. He’s one of the best shooters in the league, providing a constant threat to take a little attention off KD, Harden and Kyrie, can put the ball on the floor and take it to the hoop when needed, and is an underrated passer in traffic. If Brooklyn wins the Championship, which they may very well do, it will of course be courtesy of their big three, but Joe Harris is exactly the kind of guy whose stock in the NBA community will rise significantly in a deep playoff run.

His Top Shot moments are indicative of this. He’s only got a handful – four to be exact – and his debut moment is perhaps the one with the most potential for a playoff boost. It’s held reasonably steady for around a month, selling mostly for around $80, though in the last couple of weeks it has dropped a little – like many moments – and most sales are now somewhere between $50 and $65.

I once again took a scroll through nearby moments to see who he’s being evaluated similarly to. Sitting at around the same price are the first moments of Javale McGee and Steven Adams – both cult heroes in their own right but, to be perfectly honest, not as valuable as Joe Harris, even if their moments do have slightly fewer serials (around 3,300 compared to Harris’ 3,999). Delon Wright’s first moment is also around the same price.

McGee will probably average around six minutes for the Nuggets in the playoffs with Jokic playing as much as possible, while both Adams and Wright will be far away from public view. Meanwhile, Harris will be shooting nearly 50% from downtown, proving a constant menace for opposition defenses who are already dealing with Durant, Harden and Irving, and potentially adding a Championship to a resume which already includes leading the league in 3-point percentage on two occasions, and winning the 3-point contest. He’ll be taking and probably hitting more than a few big-time shots, getting to show his worth in games that matter for the first time in his career, and raising his status in the game in the process. Expect his moments to follow suit.

These three guys are my initial targets and I certainly think it’s worth taking a look at them as purchase options in the early stages of the playoffs, but they’re hardly the only targets. The overarching idea - that hype surrounding underrated players on quality playoff teams will increase in coming weeks and impact moment prices - could apply to plenty of others, and moments of big names like KD and LeBron will probably enjoy a similar trend, particularly if they lead their respective teams to a Championship. Assuming I’m right this could be a good chance to give your Dapper balance a bit of a boost, so find a team you fancy to advance deep into the playoffs, identify which players the above applies to, and get buying!