The general framework for recent Most Improved Player winners is as follows: First-time All-Star, somewhere in the neighborhood of a five-point bump in scoring average and an uptick in team success year over year.
Take the most recent winner, Ja Morant. The Grizzlies‘ star guard made his first All-Star team (and an All-NBA team), increased his scoring average by 8.3 points and Memphis went from a play-in team to having the NBA’s second-best record.
The improvement doesn’t always have to be so drastic, though.
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Brandon Ingram exploded in his first year with the Pelicans in 2019-20. He averaged a career-best 23.8 PPG, a 5.5-point bump from the previous year and made the All-Star team. That didn’t necessarily translate to team success, though—New Orleans’ winning percentage marginally improved and it missed the playoffs.
There are two young, rising stars tied for the best odds to win the award this season in very different situations and the two players with the next-best odds, oddly enough, play for the same team.
So, of the names listed below—the list of players to bet on goes even deeper at SI Sportsbook—which player is the best bet to make a leap and win the award?
Bet on the NBA Most Improved Player Odds at SI Sportsbook
Bruce Kluckhohn-USA TODAY Sports
Anthony Edwards +900
Tyrese Haliburton +900
Zion Williamson +1400
RJ Barrett +1600
Jalen Brunson +1800
Lamelo Ball +1800
Cade Cunningham +2000
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander +2200
Tyrese Maxey +2500
Anfernee Simons +2500
Jalen Green +2500
Scottie Barnes +2800
Keldon Johnson +3000
Collin Sexton +3300
Deandre Ayton +3300
Jordan Poole +3300
Michael Porter Jr. +3300
Robert Williams +3300
Ben Simmons +4000
Onyeka Okongwu +4000
The Co-Favorites
Anthony Edwards, Minnesota Timberwolves (+900)
Anthony Edwards made strides on both sides of the ball a season ago on a vastly improved Timberwolves team. He bumped his scoring average from 19.3 PPG to 21.3, upped all of his shooting splits on higher volume and his assists and steals numbers increased. Edwards played a bigger role in Year 2 compared to his rookie season, but he was still behind Karl-Anthony Towns in the pecking order.
That changed come playoff time. Edwards flashed in a first-round loss against the Grizzlies. He led the team in scoring (25.2), field goal attempts (18.3) and racked up steals and blocks. The series as a whole was a poor showing for Towns, although it also served to show that Edwards, at just 21 years old, is the franchise’s future.
His path to becoming the Most Improved Player could be very similar to Morant’s—average 25-plus PPG on increased volume in his third season, lead Minnesota to a top-six seed and get an All-Star nod.
Tyrese Haliburton, Indiana Pacers (+900)
Tyrese Haliburton, also entering his third season in the league and his first full year with the Pacersis in a very different situation than Edwards.
Indiana projects to be one of the NBA’s worst teams and that more or less seems like the plan, especially if or when Myles Turner and/or Buddy Hield are dealt. Haliburton, however, has had no issues piling up good stats on a bad team, which he showed across 26 games with the Pacers.
He averaged 15.3 PPG and 8.2 assists, the seventh-most in the league, in his second season last year. His splits in Indiana were even better: 17.5 PPG and 9.6 assists per game. Haliburton also shot better than 50/40/80 in the Hoosier State on the highest usage percentage of his career.
Statistically, the sky’s the limit for the numbers that Haliburton can put up for the Pacers this year. This is his team and his usage numbers after the trade said as much. A good comp for Halliburton’s ideal leap to compete for this award Dejounte Murray, who was the runner-up to Morant last season. Murray averaged better than 20 PPG for the first time in his career en route to an All-Star appearance and piled up rebounds and assists on a bad Spurs team that found its way in the play-in tournament. Minus the play-in tournament component, that seems doable for Haliburton in Year 3.
Brad Penner-USA TODAY Sports
Value Bet
Tyrese Maxey, Philadelphia 76ers (+2500)
Tyrese Maxey received votes award last season after he doubled his scoring average from his rookie year and became a full-time starter for a playoff team. He became one of the best three-point shooters in the league on decent volume and then elevated his play in the postseason with a pair of 30-point outings across two rounds. The only real barrier for Maxey is that, more so than some of the other players on this list, he is definitively third in Philadelphia‘s pecking order.
If Maxey increases his three-point shooting volume, he could easily see an uptick in scoring to get him up above 20 PPG, which is what he averaged in the playoffs. That’s a bare minimum requirement for the necessary leap he would need to make to win the award. It helps that there’s already proof of concept for Maxey excelling as a third option, and if James Harden and Joel Embiidby choice or injury, clear some additional runway for the younger Maxey, he can surely take off.
The statistical leap for Maxey might not be as drastic as some other contenders, but he can make his case by contributing to winning basketball on a team that could contend for the No. 1 seed in the East.
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Long shot
Onyeka Okongwu, Atlanta Hawks (+4000)
Onyeka Okongwu has played well in limited opportunities throughout his two NBA seasons, both of which have been hampered by injuries. His minutes per game jumped to 20.7 last season after a promising but generally quiet rookie year and his scoring and rebounding numbers jumped up accordingly.
At 6’8”, Okongwu is certainly undersized for a center but he offers defensive versatility and he showed more of his shot blocking chops last season, swatting 1.3 shots per game. In one season at USC, Okongwu averaged 16.2 PPG and shot well at the free-throw line. In addition to gobbling up more rebounds, he needs to show more of the offensive touch that made him the No. 6 picks in the first place.
Okongwu’s path to having the opportunity to prove he’s even the most improved player is clouded by what Atlanta has in place in front of him: John Collinswhose name has occasionally come up in trade rumors, and Clint Capela, whose minutes per game fell last season. If you squint, you can see Okongwu eating further into Capela’s time on the floor and becoming part of a dangerous, small-ball Hawks lineup alongside Collins and flirting with double-doubles nightly.
BET: Tyrese Maxey, 76ers (+2500)
Maxey is the best value at these odds. Philadelphia has hopes of a deep playoff run this season and part of that requires pacing Harden, who has a lot of miles on him, and Embiid, who has a checkered injury history, for the long haul. Leaning heavier on Maxey, who hasn’t missed many games in his career, for the grind of an 82-game season is a good way to do that, and what he showed in the first round while Harden was underperforming felt like a preview of what’s to come.
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