Tyrese Maxey was sixth in the Most Improved Player voting two years ago, a tribute to the jump he made between his first and second seasons in the NBA.<\/p>\n
Voters thought the jump he made from his third year to his fourth was even more impressive.<\/p>\n
Philadelphia\u2019s All-Star guard on Tuesday night was named the league\u2019s most improved this season. Maxey\u2019s scoring rose for the third consecutive year, and he finished the regular season averaging 25.9 points, 6.2 assists, 3.7 rebounds and 1.0 steals per game \u2014 all career bests.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not uncommon for players to see their numbers soar when given a new role, but that wasn\u2019t the case with Maxey. Consider: two years ago, he averaged 17.5 points, 4.3 assists, 3.2 rebounds and 0.7 steals in 35.3 minutes per game. This year, he topped all those numbers and averaged only 2.2 more minutes per contest.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt feels great,\u201d Maxey said on the TNT broadcast where the award was announced. \u201cSomebody like myself, who prides myself on putting in a lot of work and outworking people and finding ways to get 1% better every single time I step in the gym, it feels good for that to come to light, honestly.\u201d<\/p>\n
Maxey edged Chicago\u2019s Coby White in the voting. Houston\u2019s Alperen Sengun was third. White averaged 19.1 points, 4.5 rebounds and 5.1 assists per game \u2014 all career highs. Sengun averaged 21.1 points, 9.3 rebounds, 5.0 assists and 1.2 steals in 32.5 minutes per game \u2014 also all career highs.<\/p>\n
Maxey got just over half of the first-place votes and that pushed him just past White. Players got five points for a first-place vote, three for second and one for third. Maxey finished with 319 points to White\u2019s 305, but White appeared on 91 ballots compared with 79 ballot appearances for Maxey.<\/p>\n
Sengun finished with 92 points for third.<\/p>\n
The awards were selected by a panel of 99 reporters and broadcasters who cover the league. Their ballots were due last week before the start of the play-in tournament. NBA awards take only the regular season into consideration.<\/p>\n
Utah\u2019s Lauri Markkanen won the MIP award last season. The other finalists from a year ago \u2014 Oklahoma City\u2019s Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and New York\u2019s Jalen Brunson \u2014 were MVP candidates this season, and both got MIP votes this year as well.<\/p>\n
The rest of the voting: Oklahoma City\u2019s Jalen Williams was fourth, Brunson was fifth, Washington\u2019s Deni Avdija sixth, Brooklyn\u2019s Cam Thomas seventh, Orlando\u2019s Jalen Suggs eighth, Indiana\u2019s Tyrese Haliburton ninth, Phoenix\u2019s Grayson Allen and Miami\u2019s Duncan Robinson tied for 10th, San Antonio\u2019s Devin Vassell and Gilgeous-Alexander tied for 12th, and Indiana\u2019s Aaron Nesmith was 14th.<\/p>\n
The MIP award was the first of seven individual trophies that will be handed out in the coming weeks, along with All-NBA, All-Rookie and All-Defensive teams.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The 4th-year guard set career highs in scoring (25.9), assists (6.2) and steals (1.0) while making his 1st All-Star Game<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":146,"featured_media":384591,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_spbk_hide_featured":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[399],"tags":[822],"rumors":[],"typology":[15727],"posizionamento":[],"class_list":["post-384592","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nba","tag-philadelphia-76ers-en","typology-press-release-en"],"yoast_head":"\n