https://youtu.be/TiVp1Tgzha8
I’ve totally lost track of who should be winning the MIP Improved Player award this season (is Jerami Grant still eligible????), but maybe we should be putting Miles Bridges’ name in the conversation? Actually, I don’t need anyone’s permission to put his name in the conversation. I’m just going to do it. UNILATERALLY. I’m doing it right now, the conversation OFFICIALLY has his name in it. So there we go.
Bridges might seem like an odd candidate for the award, since his scoring average actually went down, 13.0 last season versus 12.7 this season. That doesn’t seem like improvement at all. It’s the opposite of improvement. It’s regression. But only hardcore casual plebeians would look at raw scoring numbers and think that those told the whole story. The part of the story those numbers tell is minor; the rest of the story, the good part of the story, the part of the story where the main characters finally bang after the tension was building up forever, is that Bridges turned from an inefficient scorer into one of the more efficient scorers in the league (especially given his shot profile).
The Hornets didn’t exactly get better because of Bridges’ improvement, but that’s not his fault. He went from a negative player last year to one that had a positive point differential when he’s on the court. That’s all the improvement I need to see.
I am only slightly biased in favor of him because of how “extra” his commentators are when describing his on-court actions. I try not to let their hype rub off on me, but sometimes it’s unavoidable. I will say that the more measured commentary of these Knicks dudes makes this video a bit more… stately? Serious? Like it’s not just some big carnival?
And if the NBA awards voters don’t feel like it’s appropriate to give him the MIP Improved player award, the least they could do is throw some MVP votes his way. Everyone knows Nikola Jokic is going to win and win easily, so giving a few votes to Bridges won’t change the outcome of anything.