For the second year in a row, an Atlanta Hawk is the Most Improved Player in the NBA.<\/p>\n
Last season, it was Dyson Daniels. This season, Nickeil Alexander-Walker earned the honor.<\/p>\n
\u201cNickeil\u2019s dedication, continual work on his craft, and the ensuing results this season make him incredibly deserving of this award,\u201d said Hawks coach Quin Snyder. \u201cHe has a tireless work ethic and a focus on improving in every aspect of his game. His game continues to evolve, and his commitment and unselfish attitude as a teammate have also positively impacted the success of the team.\u201d<\/p>\n
Alexander-Walker won the award because he grew and thrived in a role that was radically different from any one he had been in before. For the previous two seasons with the Timberwolves, Alexander-Walker came off the bench and was asked to be a defensive stopper and score a little, but it was more of a 3&D role, where he averaged 9.4 points a game. This season, especially as Atlanta moved on from the Trae Young era, Alexander-Walker became a starter with the ball in his hand \u2014 and he had the best year of his career in his seventh season in the league, at age 27.<\/p>\n
Walker Sset career highs in scoring (20.8 ppg), rebounding (3.4 rpg), assists (3.7 apg), steals (1.31 spg), minutes (33.4 mpg), field goal percentage (45.9%), three-point field goal percentage (39.9%) and free throw percentage (90.2%). Plus, he, along with Daniels, gave Atlanta arguably the best defensive backcourt in the league.<\/p>\n
Walker got 66 first-place votes from the panel of 100 media members who voted for the award. Jalen Duren from Detroit was a clear second, with Deni Avdija from Portland third. After those three, there was a pretty steep drop off to Boston\u2019s Neemias Queta at four and Milwaukee\u2019s Ryan Rollins at five.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For the second year in a row, an Atlanta Hawk is the Most Improved Player in the NBA.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":409636,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[85,46,105],"class_list":["post-409635","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/409635","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=409635"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/409635\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/409636"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=409635"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=409635"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=409635"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}