NBA Most Improved Player Award

With a breakout year and surpassing many expectations, Pascal has won the Most Improved Player award. He played a key role in the Raptors championship run. I think he is the first Raptor to win the award.

In a discussion between the three beat writers of the Wizards, Rockets and Bucks respectively, this is how they’d vote if the season ended today:

Iko: Brunson, Shai, lean Lauri but Mikal close

Nehm: Lauri, Shai, Brunson

Robbins: Brunson, Shai, Lauri

Quotes from each beat writer for their reasoning:

Iko: The Knicks haven’t been taken seriously as a franchise for years on end. Those days are over. They’re a whopping nine points better with Brunson on the floor, good for the 94th percentile. He’s averaging 23.9 points and 6.2 assists per game, shooting 41.1 percent from deep.

Nehm: After putting up 14.8 points, 5.7 rebounds and 1.3 assists per game last season in Cleveland, Markkanen has averaged 25.2 points, 8.6 rebounds and 1.8 assists per game this season and made his first All-Star appearance in his sixth NBA season.

Robbins: All three players on my ballot have elevated their profiles and, at the very least, taken full advantage of their opportunities. I’m giving the edge to Brunson here because he’s at a premium position on a team that has a 39-27 record.

This sounds similar to two years ago, when Jerami Grant increased his scoring by 10 ppg but his team was ass so they gave it to Randle. The Jazz and Thunder are both under .500 and could miss the postseason outright. Last year, Iko voted for Murray and the other two voted for Ja.

Since Ja Morant won the award a year ago (this isn't meant to be a shit post against him winning it), would it be possible for one of the top 5 players in the league to win Most Improved the year after? And if so, how much better would he have to be? If he was already shooting 50/40/90, would shooting 60/50/95 be enough for him to be a legit candidate or is the award reserved for rising stars at most and no one higher?

Source and full list:

Next season predicted stats are not stats that I think players will average, but the stats that would put them in the MIP conversation.

Some teams don't have realistic MIP candidate but I included them on the list although even their predicted stats are not enough to be in MIP conversation.

So who do you think will be main candidates for this award, and who do you think I left out from this list and put his teammate instead of him?

Is any player even close to this guy in the award at this point in time? He's pretty much doubled every stat in just 10 more minutes per game than he had in Denver and he's hit 22+ points every game this season except for opening night. And it's not like there's a whole lot of help on his team. He's probably the only player on the Pistons that would start for any other NBA team. That's unless you're giving a big benefit of the doubt to Broken Blake Griffin.

24.9/6.1/2.5/1.4/1 in 13 games with 36.3 minutes per game on average and he's shooting 6.9 2-pt attempts per game while getting to the line 5.6 times.

Just go ahead and give him the award already.

Players with a 40/5/5 Game on 70+ FG% and ZERO TOV in NBA History: — Stephen Curry (2x) — Giannis Antetokounmpo — Nikola Jokic — Brandon Ingram — Coby White (LAST NIGHT PLAY-IN) Is Coby White Most Improved Player? Coby White had 42 PTS 6 REB 6 AST 2 STL 15/21 FG 0 TOV. Coby's also the first one to do it while playing over 40 minutes.

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