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JJ Redick Shares Why He 'Hates' the NBA's Most Improved Player Award
The 2024-25 regular-season NBA award announcements are just around the corner, but Los Angeles Lakers head coach JJ Redick has at least one accolade he's not too jazzed about discussing.
When told that Lakers guard Austin Reaves is "in the mix" for the Most Improved Player award, Redick immediately responded with, "I hate that award."
Not for anything to do with Reaves, of course, but because the league has "failed to define it," the coach explained. "I think the spirit of it has been taken out of whack. I don't like that award. Just call it the 'high draft pick that is on a max contract and now is an All-Star.' Just call it that award. Who's that guy? That's what it's become."
JJ Redick with a discussion about NBA awards today after practice, says he think he is more informed to make picks as a coach than he was as a media member. That said, he didn’t even want to discuss Austin Reaves’ case as MIP because he says that award’s been misinterpreted pic.twitter.com/WnFhY90Bbp
— Dave McMenamin (@mcten) April 2, 2025
As for Reaves, who has had his best season yet after going undrafted in 2021, Redick declined to make the case for the guard because "he's not going to win it. It's a moot point. I've sang his praises all year."
To Redick's point, Pistons' guard Cade Cunningham—averaging a career-high 25.7 points per game in a Cinderella-esque season for Detroit—seems to be a "favorite" for the Most Improved award. But Cunningham was already playing well; he averaged 23 points per game last season, and he was a No. 1 draft pick, so it's not like such prowess wasn't expected from him. The same was the case for No. 1 picks and 2022 and 2024 MIPs Ja Morant and Tyrese Maxey; was Most Improved meant for two guys who were already ... doing pretty well?
That's what Redick is getting at there. And it's not like he doesn't believe in Reaves; it just sounds like he thinks the league will (maybe unjustly) reward a different type of guy. It just depends on how you interpret the meaning of "most improved."
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Brigid Kennedy is a contributor to the Breaking and Trending News team at Sports Illustrated. Before joining SI in November 2024, she covered political news, sporting news and culture at TheWeek.com before moving to Livingetc, an interior design magazine. She is a graduate of Syracuse University, dual majoring in television, radio and film (from the Newhouse School of Public Communications) and marketing managment (from the Whitman School of Management). Offline, she enjoys going to the movies, reading and watching the Steelers.