Four NBA Players Already in Contention for Most Improved

Just over a week into the NBA season, players like the Hawks’ Jalen Johnson are proving their worth.

We’re just over a week into the NBA season, and things are still taking shape.

Some teams—Boston in particular—are already off and running. Others, like the Grizzlies, are struggling mightily.

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But which players have jumped off the screen thus far, relative to how they looked last season? We compiled a list of the four guys who’ve made the biggest leaps to this point and are undoubtedly contenders for the Most Improved Player award.

Alperen Şengün, Houston Rockets

Şengün has been featured more in Houston’s offense this season :: Troy Taormina/USA TODAY Sports

One of the biggest headscratchers last season in watching the often-painful Rockets was the mystery of why Houston didn’t run its offense through its budding star center far more often, as opposed to letting the team’s guards dribble the air out of the ball.

Now, with newcomer Fred VanVleet running point and new coach Ime Udoka leading the club, Şengün is being featured far more. About 35% of the possessions that have gone through him have ended with him serving as a roll man in pick-and-roll sets—up from just 20.7% last season. His post-ups, which allow him to navigate traffic with his back to the hoop, are also making up a greater share of his plays, per Synergy Sports, jumping from 20% of his offense to now 23% this season so far.

The result has been better than good to this point. His points and assist averages are both up considerably, having jumped from scoring 14.8 points per contest last season to 19.3 so far and 3.9 assists last year to now six dimes per game. His effective field goal rate so far, 61.6%, would be the best he’s ever logged and is bolstered by a 42.9% mark from three, which would also be a career high. (Entering this season, he’d shot just 27.6% from the arc on 174 attempts.) But don’t make the mistake of thinking he’s anything close to just a finesse guy: He’s posterized a couple of opponents already: San Antonio’s Zach Collins in overtime last week and P.J. Washington with a nasty left-handed jam to seal a Houston victory Wednesday night. It’s made for intriguing progression from the Turkish big man, who’s still just 21 years old.

Grant Williams, Dallas Mavericks

Williams has already been instrumental on both sides of the court for the Mavericks :: Kevin Jairaj/USA TODAY Sports

Dallas’s picking up the forward—and Boston’s opting against keeping him—was immediately one of the most interesting moves of the entire summer, in part because we all could see how useful a player like Williams is in today’s NBA.

The Celtics almost certainly saw it, too, but wanting more flexibility (they’d already gotten Kristaps Porziņģis in exchange for Marcus Smart, and then more recently dealt Robert Williams III and Malcolm Brogdon to get Jrue Holiday), they decided to sign and trade Grant Williams. And we’re seeing early on that he might have landed in a relatively perfect spot.

The Mavs desperately needed more versatile defenders after watching their defense fall off a cliff last season, just one year after reaching the conference finals with a top-10 defensive unit. Williams gives them that. And after showing reluctance to fire away at times last season, he’s playing as if he’s been given a green light to shoot at will in Dallas. Williams is launching a career-high 11 triples per 100 possessions—up from 6.9 per 100 in 2022–23—and knocking down better than 55% of them so far.

That number will inevitably fall. But if he’s anywhere near 40% for the year on this sort of volume, it will significantly raise the Mavs’ ceiling. And his 15.5 points and five rebounds per game have a lot to do with why Dallas is still undefeated.

Jalen Johnson, Atlanta Hawks

Johnson has improved rapidly in Atlanta, knocking down 62.2% of his field goal attempts :: Dale Zanine/USA TODAY Sports

There are countless numbers to choose from when parsing out Johnson’s rapid improvement in Atlanta. In logging more than 28 minutes per game, he’s averaging career bests in points (13.2), field goal percentage (62.2%), three-point percentage (33.3%), rebounding (7.8) and assists (2.0).

Still, even as the forward’s scoring from night to night has more than doubled since last season, his defense has been even more noticeable at times early on.

He’s wildly athletic—soaring over both New York’s Josh Hart and Isaiah Hartenstein for a huge dunk—and has had considerable success both starting and coming off the bench. (He backs up Saddiq Bey.) At 6'9", Johnson has the size to hold his own with bigger players, as he did during a start against Karl-Anthony Towns, who finished that contest with just 16 points on 17 attempts.

The 21-year-old Johnson also rarely gives up on plays, which carries massive benefits for a team like the Hawks, who play at one of the league’s fastest paces. Take, for example, the play in transition recently where Milwaukee’s MarJon Beauchamp had what he thought was an easy breakaway dunk. Johnson flew in and swatted it away. He was whistled for a foul, but after reviewing the play, officials reversed the call, saving Atlanta points defensively. (Also of note: hH’s blocking more shots per contest than he ever has.)

thats a real nice chase block by Jalen Johnson on Beauchamp. 2nd Coach-Challenge on deck for Atlanta. pic.twitter.com/pmbNoRLf21

— Big Picture Kinda Guy (@highmusings718) October 29, 2023

Tyrese Maxey, Philadelphia 76ers

Maxey’s scoring has taken on a whole new life so far this season :: Bill Streicher/USA TODAY Sports

The Philadelphia guard is the early runaway candidate for Most Improved Player because he’s taken his scoring to another level to start his fourth season.

Maxey, who will turn 23 on Saturday, is averaging a 30-piece through the first three games of the season. (He averaged just over 20 points per game last year.) He’s shooting 50% from the field and is shooting it even better than that (56%) from deep on more than eight attempts per game. His assist-to-turnover ratio is better than 6-to-1 for the time being.

Without James Harden handling the ball, there’s never been a better time to see what he can do. The early returns are fantastic and have Sixers fans thrilled about the possibilities. It’s scary to think that there might even be room to make one more sizable deal to upgrade the roster one more time. But Philly would be wise to be very, very thoughtful about who that incoming player would be. No matter what, you don’t want Maxey to have the ball in his hands far less than he’s handling it now. There’s too much potential there to have him—or reigning MVP Joel Embiid—cede the rock to a ballhandler who isn’t as efficient.