{"id":144951,"date":"2025-09-09T20:59:07","date_gmt":"2025-09-09T20:59:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/144951\/"},"modified":"2025-09-09T20:59:07","modified_gmt":"2025-09-09T20:59:07","slug":"the-sparks-case-for-azura-stevens-to-win-most-improved","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/144951\/","title":{"rendered":"The Sparks’ case for Azura Stevens to win Most Improved"},"content":{"rendered":"

The 6\u20196 center is in her eighth season in the league, and undoubtedly her best<\/a>. She\u2019s averaging 13 points, 7.9 rebounds, 1.2 steals, 1.1 blocks, 2.1 assists, while shooting 48.8% from the floor and 39.8% from three on 4.3 attempts per game. All but the blocks number are career bests for her. Stevens is also fifth in the league in defensive rebounds per game.<\/p>\n

Last year she had four double-doubles. On Sunday night, she recorded her ninth of 2025.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But most notably is Stevens\u2019 impact on the Sparks\u2019 ability to win games. She\u2019s scored in double figures in only 11 of the team\u2019s 22 losses (which also includes three of the Sparks\u2019 19 wins). It\u2019s evident that when Stevens scores, the Sparks win.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Earlier in August, Sparks head coach Lynne Roberts told media, \u201cIf she is not the top vote-getter for Most Improved [Player], something\u2019s wrong, right? When you talk about most improved, a lot of times, players will change rosters. So it\u2019s a different opportunity, right? If you\u2019re coming off the bench, and then you go to another team, and now you\u2019re starting\u2013 that doesn\u2019t really necessarily show improvement, that just shows bigger opportunity.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

She went on to speak about Stevens\u2019 Effective Field Goal percentage, which is 57.5% this year compared to last year\u00a0(47.8%), as well as her True Shooting Percentage\u2014which has improved from 50.6% in 2024 to 60.4% this year. She currently ranks 11th in the league amongst players playing more than 20 minutes.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cShe came in here ready to roll, and she\u2019s completely bought into what we\u2019re doing,\u201d added Coach Roberts. \u201cI think the system has helped her improve in terms of the numbers, as shown. There\u2019s so many great players and improvement across the league, [but] there\u2019s nobody in the league that\u2019s more improved than Azur\u00e1 Stevens, for sure.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

When Roberts refers to the \u201csystem,\u201d she\u2019s speaking to her preferred style of basketball: a fast-paced, offensive-minded, three-point heavy game<\/a>. For a versatile center like Stevens who has spent her career spreading the floor rather than finding the block and posting up, it\u2019s an ideal match.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Prior to the Sparks\u2019 loss against the Atlanta Dream, Roberts told reporters that she still believed that Stevens deserved to be the Most Improved Player this season, despite a recent slump she\u2019d found herself in, shooting just 7-27 from the floor over the course of four games.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Stevens appeared to break her slump in her 13 point, 11 rebound performance over Dallas on Sunday. After the game, when asked about what in the offseason contributed to her major jump this season, she said: \u201cOffensively, Unrivaled really helped me just to be aggressive. 3-on-3, naturally, you have to be aggressive. Can\u2019t really pass up on shots. So it was really perfect prep for coming here and being in this new system. [\u2026] I tried to spend a little more time in the weight room and really focus on that.\u201d She added that she attributes some of that growth to not having to go overseas, working on her game and on her fitness in a place that was comfortable, and she \u201cknew what she was getting into.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Sparks\u2019 PR team has doubled down on her campaign with a series of posts on X touting her accomplishments this season, including a roundup of stats<\/a> on September 5th that noted that as the pick-and roll-ball handler, she\u2019s gone from second-lowest at points-per-direct (a somewhat uncommon statistic that indicates \u201cthe number of points a player generates over the course of a season, divided by the number of direct instances used to generate those plays,\u201d per ESPN<\/a>), to first in the league this year.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cTo me, improvement doesn\u2019t mean a different opportunity. If you\u2019re in one place and you go to another place, and then you\u2019re playing more and you have a different opportunity, that doesn\u2019t necessarily show improvement, right? It just shows opportunity,\u201d Roberts said, a differentiation that sets Stevens apart from contenders like Burton. \u201cThe numbers speak for themselves.[\u2026] She\u2019s just playing at a really high level and there\u2019s significant improvement, and it\u2019s a huge reason as to why we\u2019ve won more games this year.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Sparks will face the Mercury and Aces this week to determine whether they will gain a berth into the 2025 WNBA playoffs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The 6\u20196 center is in her eighth season in the league, and undoubtedly her best. She\u2019s averaging 13…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":144952,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[5479,3029,5483,89873,99,434],"class_list":{"0":"post-144951","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wnba","8":"tag-azura-stevens","9":"tag-los-angeles-sparks","10":"tag-lynne-roberts","11":"tag-most-improved-player","12":"tag-sports","13":"tag-wnba"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144951","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=144951"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144951\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/144952"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=144951"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=144951"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=144951"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}