Of all the awards given out in pro sports, the NBA’s Most Improved Player is perhaps the most arbitrary. (We won’t include hockey’s Lady Byng Trophy for sportsmanship.)
There’s no single stat that indicates how much a player has improved from one season to the next. And why has that player improved? Is it just from increased playing time, or are there other factors involved? There’s just a whole mess of gray area involved.
To make it a little bit easier, we will only compare the top five players in the latest Sheridan Hoops Most Improved Player Rankings: Houston’s Omer Asik, Orlando’s Nikola Vucevic, New Orleans’ Greivis Vasquez, Indiana’s Paul George and Milwaukee’s Larry Sanders.
The problem with the list is that all of the players are very different. How do you measure a point guard like Vasquez against a stopper like George and an energized paint stalwart like Sanders?
The Most Improved Rankings will be sorted out in two ways in this article. The first will compare the players on measurables that are equal for all players, including PER, win shares and offensive rating, among others. The second will compare their percent improvement from last year’s stats, taking the more literal approach for the name of the award.
This first model is based on six criteria that equates the value provided by players from different positions, which we find in this diverse group of five (numbers via Basketball Reference):
| MIP Debate | PER | Win Shares | WS/48 Min | O Rating | D Rating | Rating +/- |
| Omer Asik | 15.1 | 5.1 | 0.108 | 105 | 103 | 2 |
| Nikola Vucevic | 17.1 | 4.9 | 0.101 | 106 | 105 | 1 |
| Greivis Vasquez | 16.7 | 3.8 | 0.073 | 105 | 112 | -7 |
| Paul George | 17.4 | 9.2 | 0.158 | 105 | 96 | 9 |
| Larry Sanders | 19 | 5.8 | 0.153 | 110 | 99 | 11 |
The usual Sheridan MIP rankings fluctuate from week to week, but this is a cumulative look at how these players have fared throughout the season. While Sanders has been the most efficient player, George’s league-leading 6.3 defensive win shares (which should put him on the short list for Defensive Player of the Year) puts him way over the top on win shares, though Sanders’ efficiency makes him nearly as valuable when the minutes per game are evened out with WS/48.
Sanders’ ability around the basket puts his offensive rating (points scored per 100 possession) ahead of the others, but George’s great defense gives him the best defensive rating (points allowed per 100 possessions). Vasquez is the only player with a minus rating here, a product of his very poor defense. Here’s how the players ranked out based on this model:
| Ranking #1 | PER | WS | WS/48 | O RTG | D RTG | RTG +/- | Average | Overall Rank |
| Asik | 5 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3.33 | 3 |
| Vucevic | 3 | 4 | 4 | 2 | 4 | 4 | 3.5 | 4 |
| Vasquez | 4 | 5 | 5 | 3 | 5 | 5 | 4.5 | 5 |
| George | 2 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 1.67 | 2 |
| Sanders | 1 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1.5 | 1 |
Sanders barely edged out George for the award, and these two players were head and shoulders above the rest of the field. For the second ranking, we’ll take the same six statistics and compare the players based on how much their numbers actually increased since last season. We’ll try to put the improved in most improved. First comes Asik:
| Asik | PER | Win Shares | WS/48 Min | O Rating | D Rating | Rating +/- |
| 2011-2012 | 13.4 | 2.6 | 0.129 | 97 | 92 | 5 |
| 2012-2013 | 15.1 | 5.1 | 0.108 | 105 | 103 | 2 |
| Difference | 1.7 | 2.5 | -0.011 | 8 | -11 | -3 |
One imperfection with this method is that Asik’s defensive rating went way down because he went from one of the best defensive teams with the Bulls to one of the worst with the Rockets. Other than that, his improvement was substantial.
Let’s see how Vucevic improved as he switched teams from Philadelphia to Orlando:
| Vucevic | PER | Win Shares | WS/48 Min | O Rating | D Rating | Rating +/- |
| 2011-2012 | 14.3 | 1.8 | 0.109 | 99 | 97 | 2 |
| 2012-2013 | 17.1 | 4.9 | 0.101 | 106 | 105 | 1 |
| Difference | 2.8 | 3.1 | -0.008 | 7 | -8 | -1 |
Vucevic is another player hurt by being traded from a defensively superior Sixers club to a below average one this season in the Magic. But his efficiency and offense certainly improved quite nicely.