Joe Ingles Surprised Jordan Clarkson With The Sixth Man Of The Year Award

The discussion surrounding NBA awards is wide-ranging and dominant, with ink spilled all over the basketball landscape each year. On Monday evening, the first of the league’s major trophies was handed out, and the hardware was distributed in a bit of a different way. Prior to a game between the Miami Heat and the Milwaukee Bucks, TNT’s Inside The NBA crew was interviewing Utah Jazz standouts Jordan Clarkson and Joe Ingles when Ernie Johnson prompted the pair on the history of the NBA’s Sixth Man of the Year honor.

In short, it was a sneaky way to announce, via Ingles, that Clarkson is the 2020-21 winner of the award distributed to the league’s top reserve.

Ironically, it was Ingles that finished as the runner-up, with Clarkson receiving 65 of the 100 first-place votes and Ingles grabbing 34 of the remaining 35 votes at the top of the ballot. Ingles leaned into the bit, playfully indicating that Clarkson “stole” the honor from him.

Only Knicks guard Derrick Rose secured a first-place vote outside of Utah. From there, the former NBA MVP finished just ahead of Dallas Mavericks guards Jalen Brunson and Tim Hardaway Jr. for third place overall.

Clarkson enjoyed the most productive season of his NBA career, averaging 18.4 points per game in 68 appearances for the Jazz. Utah’s team success unquestionably bolstered the candidacies of both Clarkson and Ingles, but Clarkson’s advantage in counting statistics (i.e. scoring average) seemingly pushed him over the line against Ingles, who put together a tremendously efficient profile.