By Adrian Stewart Co

Hard work has paid off for Utah Jazz guard Jordan Clarkson after being named as the winner of the NBA 2020-2021 Season Sixth Man of the Year trophy.

The Filipino-American Clarkson edged out Jazz teammate Joe Ingles, New York Knicks’ Derrick Rose and Dallas Mavericks teammates Jalen Brunson and Tim Hardaway Jr.

The announcement of Clarkson winning the trophy was different as it was done during TNT’s “Inside the NBA” show on Monday (Tuesday in the Philippines) while he was being interviewed with Ingles.

During the program, host Ernie Johnson conducted an impromptu trivia session for Clarkson and Ingles with the final question of which was “How many Utah Jazz players have ever won the award?”

Clarkson answered zero but Ingles guessed one, and Johnson asked the latter to name who it was. Ingles then brought the award trophy in from offscreen and presented it to Clarkson.

“I tried to get him the ball as much as possible so he could win sixth man of the year,” Ingles said on Clarkson. “No, I think his impact off the bench is something he’s embraced and taken pride in.”

“Joe is a playmaker. He really runs our second unit. I just really accepted it and kept rolling,” said Clarkson, who is the only NBA player to score 40 points in a game off the bench.

Clarkson had a career season averages of 18.4 points on 42.5% fieldgoal shooting, 34.7% three-point shooting and 89.6 % free throw shooting, to go along with 4.0 rebounds, 2.5 assists and 1.7 steals.

The Jazz had a solid showing in the NBA Season as they ended up as the top seed in the Western Conference. They, however, had a 0-1 deficit in the first round of the playoffs against no.8 seed Memphis Grizzlies./ASC, WDJ