Lakers coach JJ Redick
Nathan Ray Seebeck-Imagn Images
It’s hard not to love a good underdog story, and the NBA has its very own trophy to honor one on a yearly basis in the form of the Most Improved Player award. However, it’s lost a bit of its luster thanks to some questionable recipients, and JJ Redick made it clear he thinks it’s time to address that reality.
It seemed like Damar Hamlin was a shoo-in to win the NFL’s Comeback Player of the Year award in 2024 heading into the season he played after literally dying on the field. However, it ultimately went to Joe Flacco, who certainly rose to the moment while leading the Browns to the playoffs but didn’t really have to overcome any major adversity aside from playing for the Jets the previous two years.
There wasn’t necessarily a ton of backlash to that decision based on the criteria at the time, but the situation nonetheless led to the Associated Press overhauling its qualifications for the award to place an emphasis on comebacks stemming from a physical setback.
That’s also the focus of the NBA’s Comeback Player of the Year Award, which coexists with a spiritually similar honor in the form of the Most Improved Player trophy, an honor—as the name suggests—that is reserved for the guy whose play improves the most compared to the previous season.
That award was presented for the first time in 1986 and has historically been reserved for a largely unheralded talent who managed to surpass expectations in a big way. However, things have taken a turn over the past decade or so as voters have begun to honor players near the top of their draft class who were widely expected to make an impact at some point and ended up landing it in the wake of their breakout season.
The writing began to appear on the wall when it was handed out to Giannis Antetokounmpo in 2017 and Brandon Ingram in 2020, but it really jumped the shark when Ja Morant was named the NBA’s Most Improved Player in 2022.
As things currently stand, Dyson Daniels—who is averaging 14.2 points per game after finishing under five durig his first two seasons in the NBA—is the odds-on favorite to take it home this year, but Cade Cunningham is giving him a run for his money even though most fans seem to agree his campaign clashes with the spirit of the award.
It seems safe to assume JJ Redick is in that camp based on what he had to say about the current MIP landscape, as the Lakers coach made it pretty clear he thinks the NBA needs to firm up the criteria while speaking with the media on Wednesday.
Hard to disagree with JJ Redick here on the NBA Most Improved Player award: pic.twitter.com/xUJVMTdzil
— Daniel Starkand (@DStarkand) April 2, 2025
Here’s what he had to say:
‘I hate that award because they fail to define it, and 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’s On A Max Contract And Now Is An All-Star.’ Just call it that. Whoever’s that guy because that’s what it has become.”
Preach.