The Athletic hands out their NBA regular season awards. Full article here: https://theathletic.com/5419285/202...lsenewsletter&campaign=9520232&userId=6559290 Most Improved Player: Alperen Şengün, Houston Şengün made a big jump at the defensive end, in addition to becoming more comfortable and less turnover-prone at the offensive end. That defensive part hasn’t received enough attention, but he went from being a flammable pick-and-roll defender to somebody who was fairly comfortable in a variety of coverages. He also cut his foul rate, helping him stay on the floor longer. He’ll never be an awesome defender — he lacks elite length and needs to load up off two feet to challenge shots — but he reads the game well and has good hands. Offensively, he bumped his scoring average from 14.8 points per game to 21.1, helped by the Rockets changing their offense to feature his post-ups more often, and deleted a lot of the wild passes out of his game. Şengün is still incredibly creative, but his turnover rate went from 17.3 percent to 12.5 percent. Just before his injury, he had his pièce de résistance when he hung 45 on Wembanyama, wrecking him with a series of spins and post-ups. I want very badly for Tyrese Maxey to win this, because it would mean that not only did I get a prediction right about something, but also that I did so in the extremely unlikely category of picking the MIP before the season even started. Maxey for MIP was my bold prediction before the year, and he did bump his scoring average by five points per game while making his first All-Star team. I just don’t think his jump rivaled Şengün’s. also, Amen gets some love for all rookie team: If you’re trying to build an All-Rookie team, take the three names below and add Golden State’s Brandin Podziemski and Houston’s electric Amen Thompson. Victor Wembanyama, San Antonio Chet Holmgren, Oklahoma City Brandon Miller, Charlotte
Was watching JJ Redick talking about his awards votes yesterday and he didn't even have Alpi in the conversation for MIP, which was annoying. Maybe he thought he was ineligible or maybe he just doesn't like him that much? Also had Amen with Ausar on second-team all-rookie, and no mention of Ime at all for COY. SMH
Podziemski is getting really overrated because his stats look good on paper. His defense is ass and he isn't asked to do much over there. Also his FT shooting is really, suspiciously bad, like even worse than Amen's, which makes me wonder about the sustainability of his jump shooting. Amen is better in literally every single category except 3P%, anybody who has Podz over him is just straight-up wrong.
It depends on what your criteria are. Podz played way more minutes and was pretty consistent throughout his rookie year, whereas Amen didn't really even play the first half of the season. Amen is undoubtedly the better player, but if you're looking at the whole season I can see the argument. For reference, Amen started 21 games and played 1388 minutes. Podz started 28 games and played 1968 minutes. It's a pretty substantial difference.
Yeah, I don't know then. I wonder if a lot of analysts don't understand the injury exception rule and don't think he's eligible. I don't think he even mentioned him in his MIP talk. Gave it to Maxey, Coby White runner-up, mentioned DiVincenzo, Kuminga, Duncan Robinson.
Sixers imploded after Embiid went down. Maxey looked mortal. Sengun always looked amazing and it didn't matter who was in or out of the Rockets lineup.
For those curious, the injury exception rule is, “a player must have played in at least (a) 65 Regular Season games, or (b) 62 Regular Season games, suffered a season-ending injury as determined in accordance with the CBA, and prior to suffering such injury had played in at least 85% of his team's Regular Season games.“
Doubt it. They were crowning Maxey before the season started. I think Alp deserves it given that Maxey already had a breakout year last season. But I didn’t expect Alp to break through even if he played 82.
