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The NBA league office announced the results for the Most Improved Player award on April 25, and Memphis Grizzles star Ja Morant came away as the winner. Morant finished with 38 first place votes, more than any other candidate.
Golden State Warriors guard Jordan Poole had a superb season, but was not even a finalist for the award. However, Poole did garner 15 first place votes from the media, third most of all the nominees.
Apparently, most of the media saw Morant’s jump from the Rookie of the Year to a legitimate superstar more deserving than Poole, who was on the G-League squad for much of the year into a critical part of the rotation.
Poole saw his averages climb from 12 to 18.5 points, 1.9 to 4 assists, and 1.8 to 3.4 rebounds. His minutes did drastically increase from 19.4 to 30 minutes a game, so the higher production is common.
On the other hand, Morant saw his scoring average jump from 19.1 to 27.4, and rebounds climb from 3.1 to 4.4. Morant’s field goal percentage did jump from 44.9% to 49.3% so that’s definitely noteworthy. Additionally, Morant’s minutes only went up 0.5 per game.
Draymond Green Went Off on Poole Not Being Considered Seriously
Clearly, Warrior fans were not the only ones who were appalled at Poole’s snub for the award. Warriors forward Draymond Green has been harping for weeks with the media and his own podcast because he thinks Poole is more deserving of the award.
“If Jordan Poole isn’t the Most Improved Player, then the NBA really needs to relook at their process,” Green says following practice on April 17. “Because you cannot find a guy on that list that has made a bigger improvement,” Green said. “I don’t care. If he’s not the Most Improved Player, then let’s rename the award to…who we like the most, who we see as more electrifying, to who we see may have a bigger impact on our team.”
Anyone can make the argument that Green has a bias since Poole is his teammate, but Green definitely has truth to what he is saying. The argument that Poole’s improvement from a G-League player to a legitimate No. 1 or 2 option seems to be more of a jump than Morant, who was a fringe All-Star and became a legitimate superstar this year.
This may be coincidence, but Morant gifted his Most Improved Award to teammate Desmond Bane. It should not be difficult to debate that Bane was more deserving of the award than Morant himself. Similar to Poole, Bane saw his numbers jump 9 points to 18.2, while shooting a fantastic 43.6% from three.
National Writer Reveals Jordan Poole as His First Place Vote
Mark Medina, a national writer for NBA.com tweeted out that his first-place vote went to Ja Morant just moments after the results were revealed.
Like Green, Medina has a similar argument, how Morant was already a star, and Poole was merely in the G-League a year ago.
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