The Most Improved Player award isn’t like other NBA honors. It’s not a positional award like the predominantly big-man-centered Defensive Player of the Year achievement, not a matter of which player scored the most points off the bench like Sixth Man of the Year, and not a balance between team success and individual greatness like the MVP award. Rather, the MIP is simply a crowning of which individual player made a drastic enough jump in performance from one year to the next, overshadowing the components that decide the other award winners. And after the first few weeks of the season, that person couldn’t be more clear.
How a bet on Miles Bridges, not Most Improved leader Ja Morant, could pay off
