Three-Man Weave: Who will win the 2015-16 Most Improved Player award?

With the draft and the bulk of free agency now behind us, it’s time to start taking stock of what’s transpired this summer and how it all figures to impact the upcoming NBA campaign.

This week, we discuss: Who will win the 2015-16 Most Improved Player award?

***

Dan Devine: Ever since the NBA started handing out the Most Improved Player Award 30 years ago, there’s been a pretty simple formula for winning it:

• Move from a reserve role to a starting role, or at least starter’s minutes;
• Score at least five more points per game than you did last year;
• Contribute to a playoff team, or at least a team in playoff contention.

There have been some divergences from that script, most notably related to the postseason component — eight times, the winner has come from a team that didn’t sniff the playoffs, with Kevin Love’s win after leading the NBA in rebounding for Kurt Rambis’ atrocious 2010-11 Minnesota Timberwolves the most recent example — but for the most part, the recipe’s been sound. More minutes plus more points plus more meaningful late-season games has tended to equal Most Improved.

I think C.J. McCollum will get a ton of opportunities to run, shoot, make plays and score for the Portland Trail Blazers. But after hitting the reset button following a free-agency-sparked dismantling of its core, I don’t think Portland’s going to stay in contention in the crowded Western Conference long enough for the third-year guard to get widespread recognition.

I do think the Chicago Bulls will once again vie for a top-half-of-the-East playoff berth, which makes rising sophomore Nikola Mirotic an intriguing choice. He was a viable Rookie of the Year candidate last season; he’s coming off a campaign in which he averaged just 20.2 minutes per game while making only three starts; and he’s entering a reconfigured offense under new head coach Fred Hoiberg that could prove a hand-in-glove fit for his talents. But in a crowded Chicago frontcourt featuring Spain teammate Pau Gasol, banged-up talisman Joakim Noah, ever-grinding Taj Gibson and 2015 first-rounder Bobby Portis, it’s unclear that Mirotic will seize a starting job and/or a significant enough increase in playing time to become as good a candidate in practice as he looks to be on paper.

One player I am confident will enter this season with both a starting spot and a mandate to generate? Reggie Jackson of the Detroit Pistons.

I wrote about the situation in which the 25-year-old Jackson finds himself at some length earlier this summer, after Detroit head honcho Stan Van Gundy gave the restricted free agent an $80 million contract to ply his trade in the Motor City for the next half-decade. With Brandon Jennings still working his way back from a season-ending Achilles tear and reportedly cool with coming off the bench once he returns, Jackson steps in at the controls of a four-out attack that at times produced serious results in Van Gundy’s first year on the Pistons bench. The former Boston College standout thrived after coming over from the Oklahoma City Thunder at the trade deadline and taking the keys, averaging 17.6 points, 9.2 assists and 4.7 rebounds per game — an increase of nearly five points and six assists per contest over his OKC marks — with even gaudier, All-Star-caliber numbers down the stretch.

On top of that, Jackson will have the reins of a roster that looks to be more fully stocked with complementary weapons than it was last season, after SVG added floor-spacing power forward Ersan Ilyasova, hard-nosed and capable-shooting forwards Marcus Morris and rookie Stanley Johnson, and interior grinder Aron Baynes to go with monster center Andre Drummond, veteran stretch four Anthony Tolliver, and the off-guard combination of Kentavious Caldwell-Pope and Jodie Meeks. With shooters, screeners, defensive helpers and acres of space on the court, and the full faith of Pistons brass off it, Jackson figures to get every opportunity to prove his contract’s a steal rather than something to be scoffed at. If he maintains the production of last year’s finish and helps Detroit chase a playoff berth in the top-heavy and muddled East, he could hoist some hardware by year’s end.

***

Eric Freeman: Nerlens Noel, Philadelphia 76ers. The Most Improved Player of any particular NBA season usually gets the award due to a boost in scoring through volume, efficiency, or both. If only for that reason, a defense-first center for a terrible team probably seems a bad choice for this award.

While Noel has plenty of room to improve on the 9.9 points per game he averaged for the Sixers in his rookie campaign, he did so on just 46.2 percent shooting from the field despite attempting nearly as many dunks as he did field goals outside of 10 feet. Noel can certainly boost his scoring average by a few points, but those looking for insight into voting trends should focus on players like the Pistons’ Jackson, who figures to put up impressive counting stats on a team with few playmakers. Plus, Detroit has a chance to sneak into the postseason, whereas Philly general manager Sam Hinkie would probably consider that outcome suboptimal.

On the other hand, anyone who wants to watch a notable young player, not just a great awards candidate, should pay attention to Noel in 2015-16. After missing all of his first paid season due to recovery from an ACL tear (plus his team’s lack of concern for getting him back quickly), Noel returned to the court last year and took some time to get acclimated to the NBA game. Once he gained some seasoning, though, he shined. Noel improved as the season went along and became one of the best rim protectors in the league over stretches of the second half, making an outsize impact on the Sixers’ defensive stats and confirming that the rebuilding team has at least one foundational block for the future.

The straightforward challenge for Noel this season will be to build on the successes of his rookie year and improve in various aspects of the game. His ability to do so on offense may be limited, both due to his own issues and the presence of paint-bound rookie big man Jahlil Okafor. Although Okafor is far more skilled than Noel, both prefer to spend their time inside, which could create spacing issues and threaten the viability of what was already a league-worst offense. The trick for Noel will be to find a niche alongside Okafor, who will be given every opportunity to earn minutes due to Philadelphia’s aforementioned scoring woes. The good news for Noel is that Okafor’s defensive limitations could only serve to highlight his importance as the linchpin of the Sixers’ overall identity.

Yet these tangible issues are perhaps secondary to a philosophical one. Bright young players have to deal with a host of challenges to succeed in this league, but those tasks become much tougher when an organization does gear itself around similar forms of on-court progress. For the third year in a row, the Sixers will trot out the league’s worst collection of perimeter talent as part of their lose-now, lose-later, hopefully-win-eventually approach to rebuilding. Noel will undoubtedly make strides if only because he is just 21 years old and fairly raw, but there are legitimate questions as to how much he can develop when the team has such a low ceiling for this season. The Sixers’ lack of interest in winning provides Noel and other youngsters the chance to develop without much pressure. It also could limit their opportunities.

***

Ben Rohrbach: Bradley Beal, Washington Wizards. Beal is already good — even very good, you might say — but I contend the fourth-year shooting guard could be great. 

His tick-below-average 14.0 Player Efficiency Rating last season — along with averages of 15.3 points (52.1 True Shooting percentage), 3.8 rebounds, 3.1 assists and 2.2 turnovers per game — aren’t all that far off from Bulls star Jimmy Butler’s numbers in the year prior to his 2014-15 NBA Most Improved Player campaign. The same can be said of the Golden State Warriors’ Klay Thompson, the next-highest MIP vote-getter among two-guards this past season. 

With backcourt-mate John Wall nursing a broken hand, Beal took his game to another level in the playoffs, producing a 17.9 PER with averages of 23.4 points (51.8 TS%), 5.5 rebounds and 4.6 assists. While his minute load in 2015-16 can’t and won’t approach the 41.8 minutes per game he logged in the postseason, Paul Pierce’s departure should free up the sort of scoring, playmaking and rebounding opportunities necessary for Beal’s production to sharply increase.

Beal’s efficiency rose in 2014-15 both at the rim and from 3-point range, but his shooting percentages dropped from his sophomore season between the basket and the arc. If he maintains the best season-long percentage he’s already produced in the NBA at every location on the floor — and sees an uptick from the 13.5 shot attempts he took last season to the 20 he averaged in the playoffs, in part because Wizards coach Randy Wittman embraced the pace-and-space style of small-ball — he’d average roughly 22.7 points per game. That seems conservative for a player whose stroke has long been compared to Ray Allen’s, and whose accuracy from distance has actually exceeded Allen’s through three seasons.

Likewise, Beal’s defense helped hold talented opposing guards DeMar DeRozan, Lou Williams and Kyle Korver to a combined 42.6 percent mark from the field in a pair of playoff series against the Toronto Raptors and Atlanta Hawks. No small feat, parcticularly after Korver submitted one of the great shooting campaigns in NBA history. The result with a healthy Wall may have been an Eastern Conference finals appearance. 

Ankle, leg and wrist injuries — ailments that can especially limit a shooter — have hurt Beal in each of his first three seasons, including the past two training camps. The first healthy offseason of his young career should be the launching pad to a special season. Oh, and let’s not forget: Beal just turned 22 on June 28.

Previously, on the Weave:

Which Western Conference contender is the most vulnerable?

Which Eastern Conference contender will make it up to No. 2?

Which young player will make the biggest leap to stardom?

Which coach will be on the NBA’s hottest seat in 2015-16?

Which rookie landed in the best spot?

Who will be this season’s most entertaining trainwreck?

Which 2015 All-Star will miss out on selection this season?