The Ringer NBA Show - How Do We Determine the Value of the Most Improved Player Award? | The Answer

Episode Date: March 15, 2023

Kyle and Seerat begin by discussing the online responses to Kyle’s “sicko” segment from a couple of weeks ago. They then dive into the complicated history of the NBA’s Most Improved Player Award, from its awkward and sometimes controversial beginnings as the “Comeback Player” prize to its current context and philosophical application (5:15). Next, they take a look at past award winners and examine the types of leaps those players made to achieve this prestigious recognition (19:10). They end the pod by talking about some of the modern players making massive improvements to their game (34:49) and revealing their picks for who should win the award this year (48:52). Hosts: J. Kyle Mann and Seerat Sohi Associate Producer: Chris Sutton Production Supervision: Benjamin Cruz and Conor Nevins Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It's official. One Shining Podcast is back, and I am your host, Tate Frazier. And as March Badness begins, we're covering everything from Selection Sunday all the way to the championship and beyond. We're going to have great guests that are coming through on the show. And look, if you're a friend of the program and you're already subscribed, you don't have to do anything. OSP is back. It's going to be right back in your feed. And if you're not a friend of the program, and this is your first time on the rodeo, then let me tell you this. You need to go to Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get your podcast. and smash subscribe today because the OSP show is back. Folks, basketball is so very good and in the immortal words of the guy who brought us, I would say the cringiest part of LeBron's scoring record ceremony. What a time to be alive.

We got March Madness is imminent. It's imminently on the docket. We've got the playoff race shaking out. And I've got the best possible person to navigate it all with the poet laureate of Edmonton. Searot Sohi. It's good to see you again, Seared. I'm settled back into my house after the windstorm Windstorm 2023 might get t-shirts made doing a little bit better. How are you doing? Kyle, I just thought that after your time out, which you're conveniently now justifying as, you know, just a personal weather situation, you know, just like having to deal with what seems like a very erratic

spring in Kentucky. I heard what you said. I heard what you said on last show. I just thought the, I just thought that after listening to the podcast with Michael and how he behaved and how affable and agreeable he was, you wouldn't open immediately with Drake Slander.

Knowing that I'm back, back in Canada, back in my old stomping grounds, after the Juno Awards, nonetheless, after you know, the biggest night in Canadian music, this is how you come out. But, you know, I guess some people just don't change. Did you go to the Juno Awards?

I did, yeah. Why, how? What was that about? Did they, you're in your basketball prowess? As the poet laureate, I mean, it wasn't that hard to get a seat, really. I think anybody that wanted to pay for a ticket could have gone. Is that true? So it's not a star-studded affair where you have to be invited?

Any old person can go? It's a concert. I see. Oh, it's a concert. Yeah, yeah. I was just doing some kissing babies and shaking hands. with my dad, all that stuff and lovely weekend, Edmondson. And now I'm talking to you. A little bit of a step down, I would say. No, yeah, yeah. I missed you, Kyle. Also,

also hilarious that you would talk. Pina's a nice guy, but don't let him fool you. You know, he, he's not exactly agreeable on everything. He has his takes, which is respectable, you know. I think it's good, but Pina, Pina has his opinion. So I'm not going to act like he's just an easygoing guy, you know i don't want i want him to get off scot-free here no i think he he channels his lack of agreeableness into some great basketball takes he's a good guy to debate with it's true it's true you can we can have friendly cordial debate anger in healthy places i usually do it's uh maybe like not like waitresses and servers oh give me give me a break you couldn't resist pouncing on that one yeah did i tell you the update though did i tell you the update on the um

Are you wearing the biggest sweatshirt of all time? That's like a MetGala huge sweatshirt. What is going on right now? That is... Yeah. I am actually. Yeah, for those of you can't see, which is everyone. Thanks for being considerate of our viewers.

Although you were wearing a hang gliding outfit. I was, yeah, look. If Searot jumped off a building, she could glide to safety. That's how big that pre-neck sweatshirt is. I'm sorry. I'm not trying to roast your sweatshirt. I wanted to update you on. the story though. We went back again a follow-up on the server, the host thing where I got

sort of chewed out for the picking, you know, making the reservation too small. We went back and I did it the correct way that I had been lectured to do and the person said, oh, you put down that it's three, but it's two adults and a kid. Okay, just for, all right, just wanted to be clear on that. I was just like, you got to be kidding me. Which made me think that the person just enjoyed confrontation. Was it the same person? It's the same person. Yes.

I started laughing. I openly started laughing and Megan was like, do not. Stop. She was like, you have to end this. Do you think that they remember you? I don't know. It doesn't seem like it. We've had three separate occasions.

I don't know. I don't know. Let's talk about we're in the middle. I'll see that you're somewhat reformed. You really are stuck on this idea of me needing. Every person needs work and I embrace and I embrace that journey. I'm not opposed to it. You know, talking about like reformation and, not reformation, reformation and like improvement and growth.

It's a thing I love to talk about in like development. You know, younger players getting better. Just getting better in general is a cool topic. And in the NBA, they like to reward certain individuals on a yearly basis with an award called the Most Improved Player Award, which is going to be the next edition in our series about awards. award season. You can say ZN if you want. I'm moving on from that trope.

But we're going to talk today about that award, the history of the award, the pitfalls of it the way the philosophy has changed over the years. And then at the end, talk about who we think should win it this year. So, Siri, you really got into kind of a historical dive,

which I always love to sort of observe your brain's kind of thought process over your manifestos that you do. Big note taker, Sir, Sohey. Let's open up by just kind of talking about where this award started. What do you think the most improved player was like in the beginning? Just, we'll open with that. Yeah. So it was the first, the most improved player award was actually improved upon by itself. So I love that the award itself is taking on the spirit of what it's celebrating. That's great. It actually started in 1982 at,

as the comeback player of the year award. And for those of you who listened to the Sixth Man episode, you'll remember that that was also the first year of the Sixth Man Award. This was around a time that the NBA was trying to find new ways to market the game. It was the beginning of the 80s. It was pre the takeoff of the magic Larry Bird rivalry. That would set the NBA up for Jordan to basically turn. it into the incredibly huge billion dollar enterprise that it is now.

This is, we're talking about the era of tape delay. We're talking about, you know, people still probably prefer college basketball. This is coming on the heels of, you know, the 70s and the NBA really just being associated with problems around cocaine, around drugs in general. And obviously there is like the racial element, too, to all of that. the NBA at this point is just trying to find a way to highlight its best players to a public that is they're pretty, they are questioning the NBA. They don't really know if

they want to support the NBA that just doesn't really have a lot of mass appeal at this point. So what they do is they come out with a bunch of awards and the NBA comeback of the player, comeback player of the year award, it was actually sorry it was 1981 and it only lasted five years this award because well the first the first guy who won this award with Bernard King

who you know this is this is a part where this award is tricky right the comeback alone suggests that there was a place that you didn't necessarily want to be and Bernard King was coming off of

charges of sodomy for sexual abuse possession of cocaine and it had a big alcohol problem and all those things were were all related you know I think his his testimony in the sexual abuse case was that he was too drunk

to remember doing it at all which gosh as far as justifications go what a defense yeah not a great one Not a great one. I'm really leaning towards leniency. Yeah. This was also in an era, an era that we still haven't quite gotten out of, but we're,

we're sort of finding our way out of the era of the perpetrator of a, of an assault of any kind, whether it's sexual, an athlete, finding themselves in trouble for something that they really shouldn't have done being a story about their comeback. and how they can make it back from that. Just not great centering of the victims there, but that is the environment that we were in back then. For the NBA's purposes in that moment, I don't think that they were thinking about any of that stuff,

but they are trying to find a way to market a new crop of NBA players and get away from this image problem that they have. So Bernard King winning this award was not exactly, what they were looking for. And then you have Michael Ray Richardson win the award. You have Marquis Johnson win the award, who are also, you know,

dealing with returning from drugs and alcohol dependency issues and stuff like that too. And also these things, you know, I think there's a way to do these stories that is actually great, you know, like people finding a way to, you know, overcome addiction.

Like, we tell these stories in ways that aren't great sometimes, but this was not an era where any of this stuff was done in a nuanced way. And what it let the other half of it was also like you had Adrian Dantley win it one year and it was after he got injured. Ideally that's what it is, right? Ideally, it's somebody, it's something something like that. It's a, it's a story of overcoming hardship, not, you know, I was joking with you. I was like in this era, I feel like the award essentially was just like you do not, in fact,

have to hand it to them or reward me for this mess I made. These are situations. If you're bad, if you're, it's an odd thought process. And there are a lot of things like this when the, with the NBA over the decades, just sort of reckoning with marketing this product, which over,

you know, once the ABA and the NBA merged, became increasingly a sport made up of black athletes. They're worry about like marketing that to, uh, an audience that they were afraid wouldn't culturally mess. or integrate or interface with, you know, it's funny that they would set themselves up. Now, that issue being aside from the fact that like, you know, the drug problem being a separate

thing, obviously, that like, you know, those, they just had all kinds of like marketing issues. And it's funny that they would set themselves up to basically promote athletes that were coming back from these issues, which furthers the idea that they were worried about their audience, not wanting to accept in the first place, right? So I don't know. It's just like, no one in the room raised their hand, right? That's the part of it that's the hardest for me to understand whenever they were thinking about this.

Like, comebacks should have been exclusively injury, right? You would think. Not like coming back from cocaine addiction. Well, this, I mean, it's, I don't think that's necessarily something that like you can't celebrate. It's just something that the NBA obviously at the time didn't want to. Yeah. It's a marketing thing, not a human story thing, right? I mean, obviously, it's celebrated that people rehabilitate themselves. Like, I want to be super clear about that. Obviously, not that I necessarily even need to. But yeah, I mean, they're two separate things. They were looking at this sort of marketing. Right. The NBA wanted a whitewash, like, and pun very much intended their image. And they did not, that's not what they got with this award at all. And in fact, Adrian Dantley, who is a player who was injured and made a bag, was basically like, this is. not an award I hope to ever win again.

And the players who were coming back from, you know, like, there's a point where like, you know, there's just like you, you don't know if you're ever going to play basketball again. So like the ones that were dealing with the addiction issues, they were more so just like they were prideful about the fact that

they were able to make it back from them. So, but yeah, it got to, it got to a place where the NBA just realized like this isn't really working. This isn't doing what we intended it to. So, So in the middle of the, I think it was the 1989, yeah, the 1986 season, they decided during the middle of the season, like leading up to the All-Star break, while Walter Davis was the leading candidate to win the Most Improved Player of the Year award, that this award was just not going to exist anymore. there is a great headline that I pulled from from newspapers.com,

which is just a lovely resource in these moments. One of my favorite sites. I'm being serious. Come back when you find a less embarrassing award. There were a couple. And like there was, there was reporting at the time that part of the reason that, like the NBA obviously said that the reason that they phased it out

was because it was difficult to determine with any kind of clarity exactly what the requirements were, which is interestingly an issue that we still have with the most improved player. Yeah, it has not gone away in any of the awards. We have not totally figured out what this award should be. But at the time, there was reporting suggesting that the drug thing was a big issue, and that's why they did it. They did it in the middle of the season, and around the end of that season,

the Sons, and Walter Davis was the best player of the Sons, were like nine members of the Sons. sons were basically implicated. Yeah, the Maricopa County Attorney's Office indicted 13 people on drug-related charges, three of whom were active sons players, James Edwards, Jay Humphreys, and Grant Gonserick, Gondresik. I don't know. I've never said that name out loud. These indictments were partially based on a testimony from Walter Davis, who was given immunity. So he ratted his teammates out basically.

Right. And this was also like a season where he, in 1985, he, actually voluntarily entered a rehab clinic to be treated for cocaine and alcohol abuse. So he was also one of those sort of comeback stories. So the NBA wanted to nip it in the bud, and they did. And it's probably a good thing that they did for their purposes, because later that season, that happened. And it was at the time the biggest drug bust ever in pro sports. There's an S.I. Vault article that I'll share on Twitter about this because it's really

interesting. S.I. Vault is one of the most incredible things out there that's free, by the way. I can't believe it's free. Maybe I shouldn't say this on a podcast, but it's insane. You can look at the actual color magazine online for free. Yeah, here's a free idea for Sports Illustrated. Why don't you put that behind a paywall? Because anybody who is crazy enough about sports will pay for that,

because if they can pay for that, because it is an incredible resource. And then you could maybe hire back all the writers that you fired and actually start doing journalism again. See it. let them have it no that's their biggest asset i don't understand it's like their brand it's their legacy it's like a library of great writing and it really is page and photography and it's free i don't get it why are we telling we're giving this we're probably ruining something that we love but continue the point that you were making i'm sorry i had to reel too look no i think you know what if this if this leads to maybe some that's true like another entity that is having a branding problem

Anyway, yeah, so this happened right around that time. It's more of an aside, but it's a really interesting moment in NBA history of this team because it also, it led to the sons selling the team to Jerry Colangelo, who was a GM at the time. And when Jerry Calangelo signed on to be the GM at the time, there was a clause in his contract that if he ever wanted to buy the team, that he would be given some level of priority consideration. So throughout, you know, this was just kind of a PR disaster. they needed to clean up. And Colangelo bought the team. And I think that, like, I mean, Colangelo was a great general manager and, like,

has become one of, like, the signature forces in making the NBA what it is today. So it's just, it's a really interesting. In all of basketball. He's one of the, yeah, one of the biggest voices in all of basketball. Yeah, yeah. He decides what the rules are oftentimes. And, yeah, there's also, it was a weird, like another really tragic thing that happened. But one of their centers, Nick Venos, was killed in a plane crash that season too.

So it was just that season just had a lot of stuff going on for the suns that I think like the more you dig into it, the more it has implications for a lot of the things that we see in the league today. I was going to tack on to there that Walter Davis, one of the Michael Jordan has cited him as one of his biggest influences that he emulated Walter Davis. So a little little ripple effect from my recent. that I had found. David Thompson and Walter Davis. There you go. Wow. Okay. What a through line, this guy. That's so cool. So we then, you know, go from the NBA comeback player of the year award to the most improved player award. And that is the award that we know it as today. Now, Kyle, there are, this is an award that has an interesting history. There have been, it's gone from an award that has

rewarded a lot of role players to then in the early 2000s T-MAC won, Germain O'Neill won, and you saw all-stars and guys who will be future Hall of Famers start to win the award, and now we

kind of don't know what it is, but you had a lot of interesting takes on some of the guys that won it, so like let's, you know, the floor is yours. Well, when this reform Reformation Award, when this growth, when they started to kind of get a better idea of maybe what the award was. We didn't nail it from the start, needless to say. Basically, the award rewarded, and it tends to reward, I feel like, if you look over and over, I feel like

this is a pattern that has continued is change of scenery, basically. So players change teams, and then they're suddenly treated like a different person. And we've seen this like lots and lots and lots of times with this award. You mentioned Tracy McGrady in 2001, which I believe was the sign and trade to the magic. And it's like, oh, lo and behold, he's suddenly a different player. And these players will have huge upticks in production. Usually just as a matter of them getting more of a chance. They get more runway because Vince Carter was there.

You know, they had this guy. He knew that he could expand into this other thing, which also means, you know, making more money. A big one is Dale Ellis, who went from like a really, a team that I think history has kind of forgotten, a Dallas Mavericks team in the mid-80s that had like Roy Tarpley, Mark Aguire, Sam Perkins, Derek Harper, Dale Ellis leaves at age 25 and had a 17-point jump in his scoring average. And he went to a good team. The Sonics were actually in the playoffs, played the

Lakers. That was one of the better examples. I found, I on earth one that I had forgotten about. This was a trade that happened. Germain O'Neill was traded from the Blazers to the Indiana Pacers in 2000 for Dale Davis, who was like 32 or 33 years old. Remain O'Neill, I would say he's a Hall of Famer. I mean, like, he was like a multiple-time All-Star. I think he was an incredible player, but they traded to him at age 22. He'd only started 10 out of his first 141 games there. So that was, that was like a brutal, brutal.

I tweeted out the newspaper article that they signed Sean Kemp the same day. Rough day in Blazers history, Sirith. That was a rough day. That was not the Sean Kemp we know and loved, or loved at least. So that's another good example. You can go down through Pervis Ellison You know, Scott Skiles

Dana Barrows, Jalen Rose These are all people who change their context And then, but I guess the question That it's sort of unearthed here is like Did these guys, what are we rewarding? Like is it important to, are we rewarding guys That just got a different opportunity? Do statistics really represent players who they are?

What is It kind of, this is kind of where we start to ask the question of like what improvement actually means like in terms of this award like do we need to reward guys who were in the same spot or what do you think about the change of scenery aspect of this? I think I think it gets to the fact that we just don't know what this award is supposed to be out of all the awards and they all have nebulous definitions. Everybody kind of comes up with their own. The most improved player award probably has the most nebulous. You can kind of make it into whatever you want to make it into. And the change of scenery stuff, it always feels like a

combination of both. Like, just one of the guys that we'll probably talk about today, we'll talk about, I'll bring him up right now, Jalen Brunson. He's a guy who, it was very clear in the minutes that he played without Luca Donchich and the times that Luca Donchish was hurt, especially through the playoffs, that Jalen Brunson had another gear to his game, that if you gave him more touches, that he could sustain that, right? I think a lot of it comes down to that,

and I'd be curious for your kind of developmental perspective on this, too, where certain players, they show that they can be efficient in small roles that should probably justify expanding those roles at some point, but in the framework of a team, that can be difficult because it means taking stuff away from somebody else or maybe changing the framework of how you play, changing your identity a little bit. And I think that as a team, like, I don't know. I mean, it's like I don't have to, it would not be

a hot take to say that the Mavericks really screwed that up by not finding a way to get Brunton to fit and adjusting their play style a little bit and, you know, paying him and all that stuff. Like, we don't need to get into all that today. But not being malleable really hurt them because everybody, I mean, obviously, including them, they watch him the most closely, could see that he could be more than what he is. And we've kind of seen that bear itself out throughout, you know, his, his, like, first year with the Knicks where, you know, he goes, he, he basically has, like, this all-star year where he's playing the same way,

but he's just doing more stuff, you know? like he's up from like you know he he he played like he uh his scoring nine points per game is a pick and roll ball handler this year and the only he only dropped off by like 0.06 in points per possession and you'll see similar sort of stuff in his driving numbers and his isolation numbers like the the statistical drop off has been so little that it's like okay this is a guy that he was already doing it's like i don't know how much he's actually improved in that case. I don't know how much I'm surprised, I guess, right? Yeah. I guess there is something to be said about like improvement. Like there's the hypothetical idea of them just going to another

team and like doing what they do and expanding. I guess we shouldn't underrate the shift of volume, you know, like you were talking about the fact that like his volume went up at his efficiency. Not every guy can do that because, you know, like really the difference is, the way, when you're like a secondary guy and you're like running those types of pick and rolls, maybe you're like, you know, playing off the catch and like rolling right into a pick and roll, that's different than playing against like a set defense that's like we know, we, we kind of know that this is the way this team likes to operate philosophically. So, you know, that's an element of it. I think that we should be careful not to underrate, don't you think?

That's a good point. Like, I think you look at guys that, like, we talked about Jordan Poole over the All-Star, All-Star. Like, that's a good. That was a big Pina moment. I think that was a big Michael Pena moment. But that's the guy who I think is struggled to figure out how to, you know, increase his volume while maintaining his efficiency. And there are plenty of guys in a league that do struggle with that. Like, you figure out what their limitations are, I guess. So that's a good point.

I don't know. It's a different thing. It kind of reminds me of the sixth main of the year award thing. It's like that's the difference between those guys and a guy who is like the primary option for a team on a nightly basis. So I think whenever we think about the change of scenery award, even though it's like you do get into that kind of weird gray nebulous like question of like, did they actually change? I don't know. The other part of this, the other part of the award is, and agree or disagree with this, you kind of get into this question of like what types of improvement are more important by the criteria of this? Like what do we need to be rewarding?

because there are guys, and I've had this conversation with lots of different people, like, the ability, and we've kind of talked about this too in our top 100 rankings that, like, maybe a guy doesn't jump 10 spots into the top 10 or something. They won't go from, like, 72 to 62 or something like that. Like the difference between the guys at the very top from, like, 10 to 1, in some cases, those improvements are really, really difficult to add. You know, those are the kinds of things that take a guy from being like perennial All-Star to like maybe perennial All-MBA or even a Hall of Famer. And, you know, we've seen kind of, that's another kind of development that I think it would seem small because we give guys a lot of credit for how good they are.

And when they make sort of something that appears to be an incremental change within their game, you know, sometimes those those improvements are incredibly difficult to make. Like, there are a lot of examples of that throughout history. Like, I don't know. If you think about like Jordan adding, a lot of times it's like perimph, it's different. Like you were talking about developmental paths. It's kind of different for every archetype of player. And we see it just kind of play out because basketball is sort of like music and the fact that there are only so many notes.

It's just kind of, we have these kind of modes and ways that things flow and make sense. You know, guys that are face up players, maybe they start to get scheme for and they add back to the basket game. We saw like Jordan had that around 89, 90 with the pistons. He started to bulk up and add some of that. LeBron in 2013, which we talked about at length and in detail on our LeBron's scoring episode. Dirk did it in 2006. He added a post-up game. Kevin Duran actually kind of just did what Dirk did, like literally mimicked it, stole it in 2014. And then you'll see somebody like Joelle M. B. now. I mean, for him to add to his really, really dominant post game, to become like a manipulative passer,

that's a leap that is massive. And what do you think about the idea that we kind of exclude those guys in the most improved player award? Do you think, like, in a way, we kind of underrate those improvements, even though they would seem small for a great player? I think we see it a little bit more now.

Like, John Morant, winning the award last year, I think is an example of rewarding a sort of improvement on a superstar trajectory. But isn't that expected, though? Like, isn't there kind of a thing where we're just like, you kind of, that's what you're supposed to do as the number two pick, right? Like, don't you think? I agree. I agree.

That's what I was going to say. I think that is, like, a sort of wrinkle that we've seen in the MIP trajectory as of late, like, the awarding of star players for improving and becoming better. I think it kind of comes down to the question of, like, what type of improvement do we think is the most. valuable or the most difficult to make, right? Because like, there are guys that went from kind of being role players to becoming all-stars. There are guys who went from being all-stars to becoming superstars. Like, there is like the Victor Oladipo year. There's like Pascal Seacum in 2019. And there's also like some of these weird outlier seasons. I love the 2008 Hito Turkulu one just because it was really fun. Well, it was a really fun year. But also,

So, like, it's another wrinkle of this award, too, where, like, you look at some of the names on this list and you're like, oh, this guy just had one really good season. Yeah. Aaron Brooks, 2010 is a good one. But one that you brought up in our notes is 2011 Kevin Love, who was supposed to be a star, you know, kind of doing things that we expected him to. I think that was a big weight loss year for him, too. So I imagine that. And they traded Al Jefferson too. That was another thing too.

They got Al Jefferson out of the way so he got more of the primary touches. But yeah, that's another element of this is like it is really driven by expectations, right? So then when we start talking about surprise, because I've heard people suggest like, oh, it's really for a surprise. What does that even mean? Like, because surprise is all dictated by us. Like we're all like it's all dictated by evaluation. And that's why I went back and was reading Kevin Love's evaluations from when he was in high school to see what people expected from him. And a lot of the stuff, like, if you read the scouting reports on him back in high school, it was just like, I can't believe he's up faking D'Andre Jordan and these All-Star games and drawing fouls.

It's like, why is that surprising? Like, what is it like, is it because he's like this slow kind of pudgy white guy and we're just like, no, those guys don't normally. I don't know. It almost feels like the thing that we're saying we're projecting on to them is saying more. about us as evaluators that like, we're the ones fucking this up. Yeah, I think I entered this conversation feeling like this award shouldn't be celebrating superstars, but I'm going to go back on that now. Ooh, I love this.

Go ahead. Yeah, I just, I feel like our expectations being the reason that someone isn't rewarded for improvement just doesn't seem like a good way to look at things, right? Like, why should we consider it less impressive just because we thought it was going to happen? You know? Yeah, yeah. But at the same time, there are certain come out of nowhere players that I think when those seasons happen, those should still take precedence, you know? So there are a couple, there are a couple cases, I think, that are relevant, like today, I think, that kind of fit this discussion.

And they could be molded by kind of the way that we're going back and forth here. I don't know that the voters are thinking about it on this level. I hope that they are. But we're going to talk a little bit more about some of the current candidates and how this applies to them after the break. Get off the bench and bet the NBA with Fandul, America's number one sports book, because right now Fandul is giving new customers 10 times your first bet in bonus bets. It doesn't matter if your first bet is an air ball. You'll still get up to $200 in bonus bets, win or lose.

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Visit www.m.mdgamblinghelp.org in Maryland, 1,800, 522-470 in Wyoming, or visit 1-800 gambler.net in West Virginia. So the Lowry-Markinan SGA debate, I think, is a really interesting framework for what we've been talking about so far. You've got Lowry who came out of nowhere, basically, is having this season that absolutely no one really expected him to have for a number of different reasons. There is a situational change.

He got traded from a Cleveland team that was pretty much log jammed at his position to a Utah team that just needs somebody to put the ball in the basket. He was going to immediately be the player that got the most touches on a rebuilding team there. but also there were his his case is a sort of combination of all the things that we've been talking about essentially

you have a situational change but the situational change was also starting to happen the year before with the cabs where he played 64% of his minutes at the three which was a huge jump he'd never played the three that much in his career he'd played sort of different roles

for a Chicago team that like honestly just as far as development goes like they they just get no they get no credit in that era at all for anything that they tried to do and he he's fitting in this Cleveland situation granted he's you know gonna he's not going to be you know prioritized over somebody like Evan Mobley but he's finding new wrinkles in his game he's sort of figuring out what his position is and I think like the journey of self-discovery is a big part of some of these most improved player awards as well. So this year, he's playing the majority of his minutes at three,

which is something that he discovered last year. And then there's also this extra wrinkle of playing in Finland over the summer and being the number one option there and having a new coach in Will Hardy watching that and saying, oh, why can't we bring some of that over here? And he's just having this incredibly fun, versatile season where he's playing on both ends of pick and rolls and pops and finding his role. But there's also a genuine improvement aspect too when you look at how much better he's playing at the rim, the way he's leveraging his athleticism.

He has thrown down some of the most entertaining dunks that we've seen this season. He's improved as an offensive rebounder, and he's figured out how to really use his size. I think if you ask me a year ago, I would say the ideal version of Lowry Marketing would be half of what he's doing now in the perimeter, which is basically being like a catch and shoot guy coming off of screens, like a really tall Clay Thompson sort of situation. But he's also become someone who, you know, he shoots 70% from the field when he touches the ball in the paint. and he also, you know, he grabs two offensive rebounds per game. And he's just like, he's really become destructive down there. And it's just really fun medley of characteristics on, on like a jazz team that kind of feels like,

like this framework might not exist forever. This version of Lowry might not exist forever. I'm really curious to see five years from now how we reevaluate this season in his long-term trajectory. Is this like going to be the season that turned him into an all-star? Or is it going to be like one of those he-o-turned, Turgalu best seasons that he had because the fit was was perfect. So there's that version of it too, like this like role player to all-star leap.

But then there's also the Shagelius Alexander thing where you can make the argument that, hey, he was, his case is also a little bit more nuance too because while he has become a superstar, he is not necessarily someone that we expected to become a superstar. We expected him to become a star, but I don't think the expectations were ever this high for him. I was going to say one thing about Lowry, you said he came out of nowhere. This kind of goes back to, I mean, he was the seventh overall pick, and I guess that kind of player by player dictates kind of our expectations for him. So, you know, he wasn't kind of totally out of nowhere.

No, if you think about like Shay, Shay, kind of the same thing. He was just mis-evaluated, and it makes you wonder, it makes you wonder if we would be talking about him in such a surprise way if, like, you know, if that trade, you know, that between the Clippers, you know, that he was included in that deal. It makes you wonder if they had evaluated him and said, no, like, we believe in him. You know, it's all kind of dictated by our expectations. You talked about Lowry. I wanted to kind of touch on a couple of, when I think about this award, you know, I tend to, I tend to value the guys who are where they are more. Like, you know, I'm looking at some of the ones here,

like one of my favorite, like, leaps that we've seen, and a lot of this is kind of context and who is around you driven by those kinds of things, too. Like, Brandon Ingram's shooting leap in 2019-20 is one of the more impressive things.

Like, shooting is one of those things. You can, I'll throw this to you to see if you have any kind of commentary on this. I don't know. Shooting is one of those things that I feel like is rarer. Which is rarer? Let's throw this out there. Which is rare that,

somebody makes a big shooting leap from three or that somebody becomes a better like passer or ball handler. I don't know. In your opinion, in which you've watched in your basketball life, is one harder than the other, do you think? That's a hard question to answer because I think it comes down to what is innate to you and what, like, you should be working on. You know, I think there are certain players that are meant to improve their passing ability over time. I think if you put a gun to my head, I would say it would be harder to improve on your playmaking. ability. There's just, it's harder to recreate those scenarios, you know, in an empty gym or just like even playing with other people. I think there's like a level of intuitiveness and reading the

floor, seeing the chess pieces that if you don't have it, you can certainly practice it. I think NBA players as a whole are smarter than they used to be because they watch all this game tape now and like it's really important to analyze those things. And like you want to be able to make multiple, like you want to have multiple decision-making options. Like, that's become an important part of the game. So while that stuff, you can improve on it, but the same time, I think, like, if you just look at the three-point evolution and how many players have adapted to that, that to me suggests that shooting is something that you could probably find a way to improve. But then there's also guys that never improve their shooting. Like,

it's just a mix of, like, nature and nurture there, you know? Like, there's certain guys that it's a one hole in their game and they never figure it out, you know. I've talked about this a little bit on our draft show that, like, I always look for, it's when, you know, in taller guys, I, I've kind of postulated that I think handle and playmaking are really, really inextricably tied together because your ability to, like, navigate the floor kind of dictates the way you're able to sort of manipulate and bend the defense, which affects your options that are available to you because playmaking is all about making is the key word in there.

It's a reactionary skill set. And you have to create the thing that the defense is reacting to. And a lot of times that's buoyant. It's spatial navigation on the floor. And you're right about the nature and nurture thing, I think, too, because guys that are younger, I'm not going to act like I'm like some kind of like a neuroscientist on this level that I understand this. But I do feel like exposure to problem solving like literally carves.

as I've had it explained to me, is that, like, it carves kind of neural pathways in your brain when you're younger. And, like, if you don't do those things when you're younger, it's, like, really hard to do it when you're older. So, like, I just, that's something that when I'm, like, evaluating players, I look for. I'm like, okay, this guy is very likely to improve as a playmaker because he has that spatial navigation. I always point to Paul George is a guy. And if you want to, if you want to look at guys that have made leaps, uh, this is an interesting thing that I'm just kind of thinking of in the moment here. these are guys that have been rewarded within the most improved player game.

These guys all kind of have this in common. Jimmy Butler, Paul George, and Pascal Seacum are all guys at their size that can handle the ball. And thus, they had, thus, listen to this blowhard. And therefore, they had these pathways that were available to them to improve that I think are unusual. Whereas, you know, Ingram's another guy at his size that can handle the ball. But he made a shooting leap that's kind of unprecedented.

I haven't dug in to see how sustained he's done that. Marketing can handle the ball a little bit too. I don't know. That's just kind of where that's where my head is at all playmaking. I feel like that skill set is really, really difficult to develop when you're older. You have to be able to handle the ball. Yeah. I would name this award after Jimmy Baller.

Yeah. 30th pick. You want to talk about come out of nowhere. Yeah. I mean, geez. Like glue to Tibido's bench was just supposed to be a defensive glue guy. like shows that he can guard LeBron's and Carmelos of the world

and the Bulls need that and he gets a couple of minutes he's a good driver gets to a free throw line and then just break by break builds his game from there to the point where like now there's like you know there's he's still like I think shooting again like that's that's a guy you look at

and you're like there's no way that if Jimmy Butler could be a better shooter he wouldn't be a better shooter because he has improved upon literally every part of his game But yeah, like he's he's to me is a perfect example of the guy who like changed the trajectory of his career and his team through the and Paul George do like and Brandon Ingram like incremental improvements throughout their career like little things big things that have just kind of led them to to be like all stars. Yeah, I'm just thinking about the change of scenery thing versus like staying in one place. And I'm like it is kind of stupid to just say, oh, I only want to. I only want to reward players who have been in one place because sometimes when you're like,

these things go hand in hand. Like, you know, you being like you, the hypothetically you, not you see it, but like the, you know, players being like mis-evaluated often leads to them changing circumstances, which isn't their fault necessarily. So it's like, you know, their issues within their game kind of runs, you know, your opportunity and then your development kind of run parallel, you know, maybe you're going to get more opportunity to get on the court. I'm just thinking, the Jimmy Butler one is really interesting.

You want to talk about the basketball equivalent of like working in the copy room just to get your foot in the door, which is like was really smart by him, you know? And it's like a lot of players, I think whenever they're trying to develop, they have like star kind of like ambitions and things and like they get obsessed with that thing. And it's like really a key to developing is just like to find that thing that can keep you on the floor so that those other things can, you know, because that's not the funnest thing in the world to go in. But I think Jimmy's person, I'd like to say, okay, I'm going to hang my hat on guarding stars,

which is like an insanely difficult thing. But it's like Jimmy's personal makeup really kind of set him up to do that. And I almost feel like his adaptability. I always talk about like adaptability with players that like he never had any kind of like delusion about he's a guy who basically bootstrapped himself to where he got to, you know. So I just I think Jimmy's case is really unique and really interesting, honestly. Yeah, a case of genuine, consistent career improvement. And that's a really good point on development too.

Like, I think if you look at, that's also why I think it's good to be on a team as a young player where you can have the combination of a team that is trying to win some games, but also has room for you to grow and play. Like, I think the Warriors model has been difficult for them this year because the players haven't necessarily been ready for it, but at the same time, it's like, it's more revelatory about where they are than say a team like the Houston Rock is where there is no structure at all.

And like you don't really even know what to do with any of the numbers. That's true, too. That's very true. Like it actually reminds me of Scotty Barnes, who like I profiled earlier this season where he was trying to, he's expanding his game, but he is, he got away from doing the things that kept him on the floor. in the first place. And I think that those constraints can be really, really good for a young player, so you don't get lost in trying to do all these things that you're not necessarily meant to be doing

at a young age. And you have to work within what the team's needs are. That's not always a good thing. I mean, development is also, it's not a science. I don't think there's any way to say, like, hey, what is the perfect situation to develop a player in? But I feel like it just, there's something about having to build a foundation that I think pays off in the long run. You learn how to win. I think that is actually something that's probably true of early Paul George as well. Like those Pacers teams were never trying to lose, you know? The Pacers very rarely are trying to lose it.

Just kind of historically, they just, they always try to kind of stay. I was going to say another one, another really big, a couple other like really big developmental leaps. I was going to say Steph Curry in 2015-16 was a massive one when he added the strength and improved his ball handling and stuff sort of. Yeah. And I kind of talked about this in my magic video is like the tension release thing in basketball. You got to find that release and that's a huge lead for guys sometimes. Jason Tatum's driving and foul drawing and finishing and passing and all of those things. That's another one of the templates if you're like a face-up player, obviously.

Let's just kind of quickly kind of run through these and then we can kind of decide, I guess, between the two of us who we think should win the award this year. A lot of these guys kind of checked similar boxes to historically to where the award is gone. McHale Bridges, change of scenery this year, although he did see his usage go up last year, year over year. Like, he came back into this year with Phoenix with the ball on his hands a little bit more, but he had a huge leap up when he was traded to the Nets in this, in this KD deal in ISO and pick and roll handling. What do you think about McHale Bridge's improvement this year? And do you think it's lasting or do you think it's sort of like a thing where it's a jolt to the system. People are going to kind of get used to it,

scout him. Did he really improve? Do you think? Or was it always there? I think it was always there. I think it's like that's another case of, you know, building your foundation on a team that's contending. And that's something that McKeel's been doing pretty much his entire career. I think intelligence and being able to look at yourself in the mirror and evaluate yourself is a really big part of this. I think that's something that Butler was really good at. But, you know, McHale is somebody who went to Villanova. Those guys, those guys practiced the fundamentals. They do the really, really boring stuff over and over again.

And McHale, for the last few years, has basically been learning from Booker and Chris Paul and has had to find his offense within the framework of things that those guys are good at, right? So he's figured out, you know, how to navigate a little bit on the pick and roll. Or, you know, as a spot-up guy, being able to attack close-outs. And also, you know, find those little gaps in that, like, five to eight foot region that Chris Paul loves. Like, that's something that he copied off of him to the point where, you know, you have to do that in the same way that, like, someone like Poole had to figure out a way to play in the style of Steph. Because that's what, that's how you're going to get on the floor and actually be able to produce. So with Mikhail, I think he's been doing this stuff and he's had these reps throughout the years to the point where now it, to me,

make sense. To me, it's like, it's not, it's not all that surprising, you know, like this is a guy that, you know, every time he had the ball in his hands in a decision-making situation, it was like very comfortable for him by the end with this, with the sons, in my opinion, you know, like his expansion was so gradual that, that we never really saw him feel out of his depth. So like this to me is not, not shocking at all. Yeah, it's almost like there, there are different, you know, different strokes for different folks, obviously. But I think every player is different. And I think it's probably, I'm trying to think of guys who can come into the league.

I'm processing this in real time. I haven't thought about what I'm going to already say. But like the guys that come into the league and are ready to take like a full diet of primary options and they can grow. I kind of feel like that's not common. You know, like honestly, maybe we under rate how special that is. Because for guys like bridges, and maybe that's all tied up in. to the change of scenery thing that like for these guys who come into the league as sort of maybe not implied stars the way a jaw morant is or even you know a luka or the guys that we

expect to become stars like a lebron maybe this is the this is this change of scenery path works for these types of guys because of what you said like the the tighter parameters allows them to a function in an environment that is like things are working um and then once they move they have that foundation, that makes a lot of sense to me. And it kind of makes you think about who the candidates throughout the league are to be next for that. And it kind of makes me think about, I mean, my mind immediately goes to like Tyrese-Marie. And our interstitial that we did for the top 100 rankings, I was like looking at it. And I was like, Maxi is this guy who has been right there on the fringe where we're like, okay, we know he can be a dribble pull-up shooter from three. We know that he has

middle game. He's like a floater god. We know that, honestly, his back court mate from Kentucky, honestly is another guy who could fit this mold too Emmanuel quickly. These are guys who have tight parameters on what they're allowed to do. Is there any other young player that you think is in that situation that could potentially change location and

Halliburton's another guy that fits this mold too? I mean, he was sort of, he was a leader on that King's team. He probably is pretty unique in terms of his intelligence as a player like he was ready to do it probably no matter what. But is there another young player that kind of fits that mold for you in your opinion?

I don't know if he's like, he's not on a good team per se, but one guy that sticks out to me is Kelton Johnson. I also love the maxi pick, by the way. A guy that was on that trajectory who didn't win most improved player, Afrinnie and Fernie Simons. Oh, yeah, yeah. The backup of- He's like an understudy, basically. Yeah. Yeah, I could see that. I can see that.

I mean, I'm sure Dame has that in mind, like, you know, one day. I think it's already should revealing itself. Yeah, yeah, he's been good. Yeah, I think he was kind of in that maxi position like a year ago, two years ago, where now it's like, like, we know what he is at this point. Yeah, those are a couple good ones. What do you think about McHale's candidacy, though? Like, do you think that he's...

It's just a little late in the season. Yeah, it is, it is. It's not fitting the nature of it for me. Brunson, we kind of both, I don't know. Honestly, I'm kind of, I think Lowry would ultimately be my pick for this year. The surprise part of it is he kind of wandered away. I honestly had a ton of Lowry stock when he first came into the league. I was just like this, just his skill set, I feel like is prime to be a special player.

And then it was just kind of, he just kind of wandered for a little bit. I was, and I started to think like, well, I guess I was just like flat out wrong about this guy. And it's been interesting to see him reinvigorated in this new, change of scenery. I think I think Lowry ultimately for the spirit of the award. You talked about the rim finishing. You talked about like the on ball competency. Cudos to Will Hardy for like having the open mindiness to do that to see what was going on there. We know he's a great smart, smart basketball mind. I think marketing wouldn't be my pick. Marketing was my pick before this podcast started. And I increasingly just, I find myself wanting to make the case for Shea instead. Make it. Make the case. You're not

going to have a hard time talking me into anything pro shay let's go ahead let's let's hear it well i think he has a situation of being on the same team for a while now um he had the initial shift from the clippers of course and i mean frankly you ask a question i frankly don't think that deal gets done if she is not included i think the clippers did not have a choice um i think okay so he really wanted him and they were right to really want him um but when you see the there's been year-by-year improvements that have led to this incredible leap from him i think his defense has leveled up. I think the way that he manipulates the game in

the paint has leveled up. He's mastered that to the point where it is pretty much, it's made him unguardable. He has also figured out his own game. Like, he's taking less threes, and he's concentrating on playing the places that he's good at. He just looks

comfortable, and it kind of goes back to that thing of, he both defied expectations in that we did not ever expect him to be this good and he did it on the highest level too like becoming an NBA superstar is an incredibly difficult thing to do there are a lot of guys that we've talked about today that will never actually reach that level um and shea has done it and he's a two-way guy

and i just yeah i don't know i feel like now that now that we've kind of talked all of this out it kind of goes back to that thing of like i didn't i want i came into this not wanting to to reward superstars, but it is really hard to become a superstar in this league. And like the surprise element of it, I think the surprise element of the award in general is what I value the most. And he has that too. Yeah, I'm always kind of trying to balance that like pat on the head. We talked about it's, it's always kind of, but it's always kind of had this element of like pat on the head, you know, whether it was the comeback award, which obviously we knew was rife with problems about what they were coming back from from a marketing standpoint, not a personal standpoint, but then also just like

the, man, we, we thought you stunk, you surprised us. Good for you. You know, there's always, there's that part of it. But then there, you know, then I'm also balancing the, like, some guys just feel like they're in another category. Like, Luca made a leap from years two to three. And we were just like, Luca, you're an MVP. We're like, we reserve your improvement. When I was talking, you know, when I was talking about like rewarding those guys, how do we reward them? Typically, it's with all NBA or MVP or all star wins. And it makes you wonder why Shea in my mind, I'm just being honest, why Shea kind of felt exempt from that. I guess maybe I had already accepted that in my mind he was on the superstar path, but that doesn't mean that's correct.

And if you look at his career and you were talking about him, the implied thing for Shea is just like, oh, well, he needs to become a shooter. I don't know that it's necessarily that he just like incorporates shooting more. I think he's just been smarter about like, selecting them. Like, if you look at, like, 10% of his attempts this year have been threes, that's a career low. And that is kind of counterintuitive to where when he came into the league, we were just like, well, he's got to become a shooter.

He's got to become a shooter. Not necessarily. You know, he's one of the almost unstoppable downhill forces in the game. There's no reason to just quit going downhill. He's just gotten smarter about it. And, you know, overall, you're right. You're right about the defense. I'm torn.

You kind of, you kind of, you kind of post. I did it. Yeah. I would not be opposed to Shea getting this because he honestly has become one of the most unstoppable scores. And frankly, I just did not see that coming. And this is coming from Smuddy who has watched him a lot. It's a pretty remarkable, it's a pretty remarkable development. Yeah, even if you were high on Shea, which a lot of people were.

And I was too, I just, this type of leap just didn't see it, just didn't see it. And like, you know, cut down, cut down his three point attempts by half. from last season and improved to becoming a 90% free throw shooter while getting his free throw attempts up. That's great for his efficiency. It's not like he just went from not taking threes to then just shooting a bunch of mid-range shots. Although, you know, that's part of his game and it's a big part of his game. But it's also, it's suited to his skill set. He's a 6.6 point guard with the great wingspan. Like, he can get shots off over most anybody. And within the, like, within the parameters of the three-point line, he has great touch. So why not

lean into all of that. So yeah. We we think I'll close with this. I think sometimes when we think about stats and we think about improvement, we typically think about it like improvement of commission. We like, we want to reward you. I'm just trying to like sort of sharpen my own thinking on this kind of going forward. And I think it applies to Shea what we were just saying. We think about statistics as like, okay, this is development that is that is indicative. It's indicated by commission. We and we saw that you improved, you scored more points in this area. We saw that you, you know, your statistical volume went up and your efficiency went up. But I don't think that we should underrate.

This is all kind of about like what you underrate and overrate. I don't think that we should underrate the omission. Like discernment is development. Discernment is development as a human being. You're like, okay, I need to not do this in this scenario because this will pay forward in this way for me as a person. That's a banger quote right there. Discernment is development. Put that on a placard.

It is. I'm just kind of thinking about this in real time. I think you made a really convincing point that just because he's not shooting more threes, like him picking it, that is smarter basketball. And I wanted to say this too, that like I feel like restraint is kind of the final level of like any discipline, you know? Like I just feel like restraint and economy of output is kind of the ultimate sign of maturity. I think even in writing, like if you read like a really good writer, you're like, they could have gone overboard with this. And like, I just feel like the best, you'll read great writers who have like incredible economy of words, you know? Like, or you watch like a guitar, I talk about this a lot. Like, you'll watch a guitar player. I feel like that's the last level. It's like where you watch like a jazz guitar player and you're like, that person is barely

moving their hand. And yet they're playing the most efficient way to phrase. I just feel like efficiency and like economy is kind of the ultimate level. Any thoughts on that? I'm actually, I'm going to pull up an email that I got from Henry. Abbott, also known as True Hoop. Yes. In 2017, when he was an editor at ESPN, I worked with him on a Jimmy Butler profile, actually.

And after the profile, I asked him for some advice on writing. And he essentially, this is what he said. The trick is not so much in adding more or better instruments, nor in refining your playing. The thing to think about is being the conductor of all the instruments, went to summon the violins and went to have the guy with a triangle go an entire movement quietly reflecting. It was part of this very long email that really changed the way that I looked at writing, like not going and trying to like, you know, use the best possible, like the biggest possible word I can and like the best possible sentence and have every single paragraph be like this

banger because it can't. Like you, like for example, we do a whole podcast today on on different aspects of the most improved player award, you can't come out with the, like the, what did you say? Development, like discernment is development line at the 20-minute market of this podcast.

It just doesn't hit that way anymore. You might have it in your bag, but that's not the time to use it. Like, you know, you can't always use all your haymakers. So, yeah, that was a great, that was a great quote to end,

end the podcast on, I think, and it was timed right, just in the way that, like, a Shea Gilgist Alexander game winner is, is time bright. Like, you know, like you pull out, you pull out the double, like the double pump fake turnaround clutch like baseline jumper at that moment. And then the tweet, you don't need it for the whole game.

Yeah. And then the tweet after the game saying, you know, we're in DC, I'm Hemmy Carter. It's all about firing the thing at the right time. Right. It's timing. You can't do that in your second or third year. People are going to be like, dude, get over yourself. I think that's, yeah.

He waited to say he was him until he became him. That's true. That's true. Although I clearly, I love Shane. His confidence is just so entertaining. His vibe is just something that we should all aspire to, the confidence and everything. But that's something I'm going to be thinking about going forward. I think whenever I think about this award, because I think the tendency is to look at the production thing and be like, they improved.

You got to kind of dig in there and look. think that the people who vote for the award, I think that's their responsibility because it's deathly important stuff, Siritt. It really is. Anyway, is there anything you're working on that you want to plug? Any kind of thing you got coming here or anything else? You have a new podcast. You've got to plug your new podcast. I guess on a podcast with Tate Frazier, we're doing one shining pod. The Return, yes, college basketball in the tournament, we're going to be doing some reaction pods to the first two rounds. So tune in for that. Hit us. us up with who you think is the most improved player.

If you have anything philosophical that you want to, you know, you want to fire our way, hit us up on Twitter. I would love to hear it. I love having these discussions. That's what this is all about. Sir, it was good to see you. By the way, byline that I was so happy to see in the ringer.com this morning, Danny Chow. Oh, the legend.

The legend. On another, on another legend. One Toronto legend, Danny Chow profiled Jack Armstrong. Yes. Go check that out. The Toronto Raptor's long time announcer who is just, man, like, what a, what a voice. What a voice. I love Jack.

Jack is the best. Danny is the best. So just a gift for you guys on Tuesday. Well, Syriot, I think you're the best. It was good to see you and enjoyed this conversation. And we will catch you next time on the answer.