Early season NBA Most Improved Player power rankings
By Ian Levy
For a long stretch, it seemed like the Most Improved Player Award just went to whoever bumped their scoring average the most. Sometimes that was because a player had improved, sometimes it was because they just had moved into a role that afforded them more minutes and more opportunities to show what they could do.
That's changed a bit over the past few years, with a more well-rounded consideration of actual improvement. And in either case it leads to a field that can be much more crowded than other awards. For example — only two players received first-place votes for Rookie of the Year last season. Six received a first-place vote for Most Improved.
It's likely to be a big pool of players again this year, but here are five I have my eye on as the season gets underway.
5. Jabari Smith Jr., Houston Rockets
As far as room for improvement goes, Jabari Smith Jr. is very well set up for a Most Improved Player campaign by his disastrous rookie season. The Rockets, as a whole, were a chaotic mess but his struggles definitely stood out.
The No. 3 pick in the 2022 NBA Draft was billed as an elite spot-up shooter and potentially game-changing defender. He finished the season shooting 40.8 percent from the field and 30.7 percent from beyond the arc, rated by 538's RAPTOR metric as an enormous net negative on defense.
Lots of rookie struggle, particularly on defense, and we can chalk up some of his disappointing performance at that end to a roster that couldn't stick to any defined defensive principles and teammates that brought precious little to the table in effort or awareness. But his jump-shooting was supposed to be rock-solid and he only managed to make 34.4 percent of his wide-open 3-pointers, when no defender was even within six feet of him.
With that as a baseline, any reasonable production from Smith Jr. is going to look like dramatic improvement this season. The Rockets have a coherent system and better talent around him and we may finally get to see some of the skills that were so appealing in his pre-draft profile. If the Rockets are frisky, he averages double-figures, plays tough defense and makes close to 40 percent of his 3s, he should earn a spot in the MIP conversation.