The NBA's Most Improved Award is truly a Rorshach Test for award voters.
It's by far the most nebulous of the major year-end awards. What does it mean to be "Most Improved"? If you were to rank every player in the NBA from one to 540, is it the player who moved up the most spots? Is it the player who moved closest to No. 1? Is it measuring improvement purely vs last season, or career average? Can second-year players count since they are expected to improve?
That makes for a very eclectic field, with a combination of players who went from nothing to something, and a handful of players who went from good to stardom. Recent winners have fallen in that second category, with Tyrese Maxey, Lauri Markkanen and Ja Morant all winning in the last three years.
Who is in the running for the award? Who would I pick on my ballot? And who is the most likely winner? Let's take a look.
Most Improved Player candidates
Cade Cunningham has been one of the favorites for months, and there is no question that he has improved this season. Yet he is also healthy and surrounded by shooting for perhaps the first time in his career, and the Detroit Pistons' shocking team success is driving some of his award support. He is better, but hasn't made a gargantuan leap.
The same can be said for Ivica Zubac, who has added some offensive sauce to his All-Defensive game. He continues to make incremental improvements as a two-way force at center, and for all that James Harden gets the publicity it's not that outlandish to say Zubac has been the LA Clippers' best player this season.
Christian Braun is not much better than last season, he is merely playing a larger share of his minutes as a starter alongside Nikola Jokic and benefiting from the overflowing fountain of assists that is Jokic. Tyler Herro deserves a nod for taking a step forward this season, but that step has been wildly inconsistent and his hot start to the season has waned over the past few months.
Three guards are in contention for the third and final spot on my ballot. Ty Jerome improved from fringe-NBA player to Top-100 player in the league and is having an incredibly efficient season for the Cavaliers. Dyson Daniels is the current betting favorite (more on that in a moment) and became a surefire starter and will lead the league in steals by a mile. Norman Powell is having the best offensive season of his career at age 31 and is averaging over 22 points per game for the Clippers.
With respect to Powell, Jerome and Cunningham, here are my top 3 for Most Improved.
No. 3: Dyson Daniels, Atlanta Hawks
Brice Sensabaugh of the Utah Jazz has 41 steals this season, roughly one every-other game. He is tied with a handful of other players for 201st in the entire NBA in total steals this season. That puts him 90 steals behind Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, who has 131 this season to rank second in the league.
Gilgeous-Alexander is closer to Sensabaugh in 201st than he is to Dyson Daniels in first.
That's how dominant Daniels has been this season; no ball is safe when you are within his reach. He rips, pokes, swipes, deflects and outright snatches balls with impunity. His 223 steals are not only the most in the league this season, they are the most anyone has had in over two decades. If he picks up three more steals before the end of the season (he averages three per game) he will have the most since Gary Payton -- aka "The Glove" -- in 1996.
Daniels has nearly tripled his scoring average, is shooting a career-best from 3-point range while also increasing his volume, and although his per-game averages are juiced by playing more minutes, he is also earning those minutes.
Daniels hasn't become an All-Star and his overall defensive impact doesn't match his reputation; he won't show up on my Defensive Player of the Year ballot. To improve across the board and be the very best in a specific stat in the last 30 years? That pushes him above the other contenders to place third.
No. 2: Austin Reaves, Los Angeles Lakers
The Los Angeles Lakers have had a tumultuous season, mostly in their favor, and are positioned to have homecourt advantage in the Western Conference Playoffs. While a lot of the buzz has centered around the age-defying dominance of LeBron James and the addition of Luka Doncic, it has been the third banana who deserves recognition.
Austin Reaves has taken yet another step forward in his fourth season and become a legitimate starting point guard. That's a more difficult transition than it sounds, for a wing to develop the skillset necessary to run the point for a good NBA team. He is a better passer and playmaker than he was, he has tightened his dribble, and is has allowed the Lakers to put their best players on the court. Add in increased 3-point volume while maintaining his efficiency (and taking more of his shots off the dribble) and you get a player who grew in the ways that his team needed him to.
No. 1: Evan Mobley, Cleveland Cavaliers
Players like Ty Jerome made the largest pure improvement in the league; he leapt something like 300 spots in the league's rankings. But the improvement from good to great is more difficult, and it's also more valuable. In terms of impact on the story of the NBA, a player going from above-average starter to two-way superstar is as important as it gets. That's why Evan Mobley gets my award.
His defense is marginally better, in large part because of increased strength, but that has been great for years. Where Mobley truly broke through was on offense; through some combination of offseason work, Kenny Atkinson's coaching and Mobley's self-confidence, he has become a legitimate playmaking hub for the Cavaliers and is a punishing force inside. Opposing defenders will now bounce off of him as he takes the ball to the rim.
Add on top of that the very real 3-point shooting that Mobley has unleashed this season. He's not Dirk Nowitzki, but he is shooting 37.3 percent from deep on 3.2 attempts per game and looks much more comfortable doing so. His career-high in 3-pointers in a single game heading into this season was 3 (he hit it once). This season he has drained at least three a whopping 13 times, and his career-high is now six.
Mobley is a legitimate MVP ballot candidate, a lock to make an All-NBA Team and the Defensive Player of the Year favorite. A year ago it was an open question whether he could coeexist alongside Jarrett Allen, and his max contract was seen as an overpay. Now he is one of the Top-15 players in the league at worst. That's the kind of improvement that truly matters.
Dyson Daniels will win Most Improved
For all that Mobley deserves the award, he is not likely to secure it. Recently the betting favorite shifted from Cade Cunningham to Dyson Daniels, perhaps because Zach Lowe returned from NBA exile and declared that he was voting for Daniels on the popular Bill Simmons Podcast.
Given his shocking and dominant steal totals, something tangible voters can latch on to, and the anchoring that a statement like Lowe made can provide to voters who don't know how to analyze this award for themselves, he seems like the best bet to win, with Cade Cunningham a reasonable second option.