.....honestly - does anyone ever really care about MIP? It's cool to hand hard working people awards for working hard, but also, it does't mean a lot in the larger context of things - it doesn't make you top x in any one area like MVP or All NBA does. All this award is saying is "people had largely given up on you so here is an award for proving us wrong". Actually, it would be WAY more meaningful it was the "haters gonna hate" award. Mind as well put a "told you so" cherry on top of that award to make it a little more fun and spicy. How bout they give the coaches/press the ability to rank the top 200 players and the winner is the one who makes the largest positive jump from the previous year's rankings who isn't a rookie. That should normalize things a bit to those "next up" players who everyone was sleeping on(the haters) who all of a sudden everyone is realizing can actually ball. I should tackle All star weekend after solving the MIP format.
Tracy McGrady was MIP, he really became a Superstar in Orlando. After being a defensive bench player in Toronto.
It was a bad time for Amen to drop his level of production and for the team to go on a slump. Probably what chance he had is gone unless both Amen and the Rockets go on a tear the rest of the season.
He's carrying a playoff offense while he was more average last season. Not sure what the counting stats say, but I doubt anyone has improved by more. I doubt Amen has improved more, but I was pretty high on where Amen started the season. I don't know who else is even up there with those 2.