Who was the NBA’s Most Improved Player this season?
By Ben Ladner
3. Duncan Robinson, Miami Heat
It feels like a bit of a stretch to call Robinson a Most Improved Player because of how little prior information we had on him. After winding through Williams College and the University of Michigan before going undrafted in 2018, Robinson almost literally came out of nowhere to have one of the best 3-point shooting seasons in NBA history this year. He played 161 NBA minutes his rookie year, spending most of his time in the G-League simply trying to make an NBA roster. The few who both knew anything about Robinson’s game and felt optimistic about his future might have projected him as a low-minute rotation player for some middling NBA team. Instead, he became an essential part of one of the league’s best offenses.
On their own, Robinson’s numbers are impressive; he finished the season third in the NBA in made 3-pointers and joined Steph Curry as the only player in league history to shoot over 43 percent from deep on at least eight attempts per game for a full season. In the context of Miami’s offense, however, those figures become more staggering. Seldom did Robinson ever have an easy look. While the vast majority of his 3s were assisted, nearly all of them came on the move, under pressure, or both. He demanded the full attention of his defender, especially when he didn’t have the ball. Opponents knew Robinson wanted to bomb from beyond the arc, and did everything they could to prevent him from doing so, and still he sprinted and curled his way into nearly nine attempts per game.
Save for Adebayo and Jimmy Butler, no one was more integral to Miami’s offense than Robinson. The Heat scored 116 points per 100 possessions with him on the floor — 7.5 points better than with him off — and generated a 57.2 effective field goal percentage. Robinson had the benefit of playing most of his minutes with Butler and Adebayo, but Miami’s offensive success had almost as much to do with his gravity and shot-making as Butler’s creation or Adebayo’s versatility. The beauty of the Heat’s offense is how those three forces work in concert with one another and the kind of results they can produce.