Milwaukee Bucks: Who is in consideration for 2018-19 NBA awards?
Most Improved Player
In contention: Eric Bledsoe, Brook Lopez, D.J. Wilson
The NBA hands out the Most Improved Player award every year to recognize a player who took a huge step forward. Historically, this award tends to encompass the idea of a player hitting a new level of performance, or a player who has a “bounce-back” year.
Looking solely at improvement made, second-year forward D.J. Wilson should be mentioned. Last season as a rookie he appeared in just 22 games and scored 21 points and 10 rebounds total; that’s a good half-game of production for Giannis Antetokounmpo.
Yet this season, Wilson has become a major fixture in the rotation, averaging 5.6 points and 4.4 rebounds per game as Antetokounmpo’s backup. His top-end impact is not high enough to win the award, but he has certainly made significant strides.
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Eric Bledsoe is a player whose narrative suggests he is much improved, even if the statistics suggest that is not the case. Bledsoe was a strong regular season player last year for Milwaukee who is having an even better year this season, but a starkly poor postseason in 2018 has made this season stand out as even stronger. While Bledsoe is having an excellent year, one that will be mentioned multiple times in this piece, his level of improvement is not as significant.
The Bucks’ best candidate is the man in the middle, Brook Lopez. He has found the perfect fit for his skills on this Bucks team, manning the middle on defense and bombing away from outside on offense. His scoring and rebounding averages are similar to last season, but his impact is significantly higher, as Lopez is putting up a career mark in effective field goal percentage (57.1 percent) while taking 65.1 percent of his shots from downtown.
Antetokounmpo’s step forward and the coaching plan of Mike Budenholzer will get plenty of credit for the Bucks’ season, but Lopez is the most crucial addition on a team that improved by 16 wins. From a lost season on a Los Angeles Lakers team that did not want him to becoming a crucial part on the league’s best team, Lopez took a major step forward this year.
While he is the Bucks’ best candidate, the strength of the other candidates ultimately beats him out. Pascal Siakam has been the Toronto Raptors’ second-best player this season after no track record of play at this level, and D’Angelo Russell and Nikola Vucevic made the All-Star team this season and led teams to the playoffs.
De’Aaron Fox was an underwhelming rookie last season and became a fringe All-Star candidate this year on a Sacramento Kings team that made a leap as impressive as Milwaukee’s. Lopez would sneak onto a five-player ballot, but he’s not quite there for the top-three.
Picks: Pascal Siakam (1st), De’Aaron Fox (2nd), Nikola Vecuvic (3rd)