Prediction: The Defensive Player of the Year Award - Will it Impact Moment Value?
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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 Defensive Player of the Year award.
The Defensive Player of the Year award doesn’t exactly get tongues wagging like some of the other major end-of-season awards, but it probably should. Realistically having a DPOY on your team is going to impact winning more than any of the rest of them with the exception of the MVP, but for whatever reason most people prefer to watch Steph Curry hit a 35-foot three over his head than Jrue Holiday lock down on the perimeter, so as a fanbase we don’t tend to get excited about it.
As it stands, it’s pretty much a race in two for the award in 2021, with Rudy Gobert a pretty comfortable favourite and Ben Simmons the only player with a chance of causing an upset. As a result of the aforementioned factors, however, it might just be that the moments of whichever of these players wins won’t see much of a price rise – certainly not to the extent of MVP, or even ROTY and MIP.
So let’s take a look at Gobert, the Stifle Tower. Already his moments are a little undervalued for a guy who is probably the most important player on arguably the best team in the NBA, and none of them appear to be on the upwards trend in anticipation of a DPOY win. His Seeing Stars moment is one of the cheapest available from that set while his Hustle and Show double-block is cheaper than those of RJ Hampton and Saddiq Bey - I like both of those guys and am sure they’ll be solid NBA players, but I can’t imagine either of them finishing as a 3x NBA Defensive Player of the Year. The prices of both of these moments are remaining fairly stable, and likewise the rest of his moments.
It’s hard to imagine any of that changing if and when he wins his third DPOY award. We can’t even be sure that awards like the MVP will have a major impact – I certainly think it will, but I’ve been wrong at least once in my life before – and DPOY doesn’t have even close to the same prestige surrounding it.
The only thing I could maybe imagine happening is his defensive plays receiving a slight boost – something like the Hustle and Show double block which was recently released. Clearly a play like that showcases why he is such a good player and why he would be a deserving DPOY, so perhaps something like that might receive a slight boost if he wins it.
Even that, however, might be a stretch. Unfortunately for Gobert lovers around the world, and more specifically for owners of his moments, I don’t think him winning DPOY will result in too much of a price boost of his moments. The Jazz winning the Championship, on the other hand, could have a huge effect, but DPOY? Not so much.
