Brooklyn Nets: Pascal Siakam right choice over D’Angelo Russell for MIP

Brooklyn Nets guard D’Angelo Russell was a finalist for the NBA Most Improved Player honor, but Toronto Raptors forward Pascal Siakam was the right choice.

For the second consecutive year, a Brooklyn Nets guard came up short at the NBA Awards after earning a spot as a finalist for Most Improved Player.

This time around, it was D’Angelo Russell who fell short, finishing well behind Toronto Raptors forward Pascal Siakam in the voting. Last year, Spencer Dinwiddie was third in the voting beaten out by Indiana Pacers guard Victor Oladipo and Houston Rockets big man Clint Capela.

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De’Aaron Fox, the second-year guard for the Sacramento Kings, was the other finalist for the honor, but Siakam was expected to win and did, overwhelmingly, receiving 86 of the 100 first-place votes, per Howard Beck on Twitter, totaling 469 points in all. He got 13 second-place votes and was left off one ballot.

Russell was second with 12 first-place votes and 255 total points. He had 59 second-place votes and 18 third-place votes and was unnamed on 11 ballots.

Fox had one first-place vote, 13 second-place votes and was named third on 33 ballots for 77 points.

The other first-place vote, inexplicably, went to former NBA MVP Derrick Rose.

At first glance, it’s easy to lump Siakam in with past winners who were more “Numbers Went Up Because of More Minutes” winners than actually having improved that much.

After all, Siakam’s numbers jumped from 7.3 points, 4.5 rebounds and 2.0 assists in 20.7 minutes per game to 16.9 points, 6.9 rebounds and 3.1 assists in 31.9 minutes a night.

But his efficiency also soared even with the additional workload. His shooting percentage jumped from 50.8 percent on 6.1 shots a game to 54.9 percent on 11.8 attempts and his 3-point shooting became a weapon, hitting 36.9 percent on 2.7 attempts this season after making only 22.0 percent on 1.6 attempts in 2017-18.

The leaps made by Russell and Fox were also impressive. Just not as impressive.

Russell averaged 15.5 points, 5.2 assists and 3.9 rebounds in 25.7 minutes per game in an injury-shortened 2017-18 season for the Nets, shooting 41.4 percent overall and 32.4 percent on 5.8 3-point attempts per game.

Healthy for the first time since his rookie season, Russell put up 21.1 points, 7.0 assists, 3.9 rebounds and 1.2 steals in 30.2 minutes per game this season, upping his shooting efficiency to 43.4 percent overall and 36.9 percent on 7.8 deep attempts a game.

Fox, the fifth overall pick by the Kings in the 2017 NBA Draft, put up 11.6 points, 4.4 assists, 2.8 rebounds and 1.0 steals in 27.8 minutes per game as a rookie, shooting 41.2 percent overall and 30.7 percent on 2.1 3-point attempts a game.

In his second year, he went to 17.3 points, 7.3 assists, 3.8 rebounds and 1.6 steals in 31.4 minutes a night, shooting 45.8 percent overall and hitting 37.1 percent on 2.9 deep balls per game.

Russell and Fox may have encountered some resistance from voters because of their status as lottery picks. Russell was the No. 2 overall pick in 2015 and Fox was a top-five selection in 2017 (also encountering a known bias among voters against second-year players).

Siakam, on the other hand, was taken 27th overall by the Raptors in 2016 and has grown quickly into a key piece for the newly crowned NBA champions.

When you look at the leap Siakam made per-36 minutes, the voters are validated. Many players see these numbers decline when they go from middle of the rotation players to full-time starters.

Here are the per-36 figures for Siakam the last two seasons:

Provided by Basketball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 6/24/2019.

Russell’s per-36 numbers over the same span:

Provided by Basketball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 6/24/2019.

And for Fox, the numbers look like this:

Provided by Basketball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 6/24/2019.

All three players increased their efficiency as shooters, but Siakam made the most significant leap, as evidenced by adding 6.5 points per 36 minutes to his scoring, compared to 3.5 for Russell and 4.8 for Fox.

Russell’s biggest improvements were in assists — up 1.0 per 36 minutes — and turnovers — down 0.6 — while Fox jumped 2.6 assists per 36 minutes to just 0.1 turnovers more in the same span.

The win for Siakam is significant as he becomes eligible for a rookie-scale extension this summer.

He is set to make $2.35 million next season in the final year of his rookie contract, with Toronto facing a deadline of the day before the start of the regular season in October to get an extension done or risk losing him as a restricted free agent next summer.

That is the very position Brooklyn finds itself in right now with Russell, whose rookie deal is expiring and he is hitting the market as a restricted free agent — as of right now, anyway — come Sunday.

However, with all the buzz about the Nets looking to form a superstar tandem in Brooklyn with Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving, Brooklyn would have to renounce Russell’s rights, thus making the first-time All-Star an unrestricted free agent.

Fox will likely have his fourth-year option exercised by Sacramento in October. He is set to make $6.39 million this season and $8.1 million in the final year of his rookie deal in 2020-21.