Utah Jazz: Four Jazzmen who could contend for Most Improved Player Award in ’18-19

Ricky Rubio

If there was a midseason Most Improved Player Award, Ricky Rubio may have very well taken home the trophy. After a putrid start that had many Jazz fans wondering if he would be able to fit as the team’s starting point guard at all, suddenly everything clicked and a switch flipped within Rubio that allowed him to be phenomenal.

In the 46 games that Ricky Rubio played between the start of the season and that fateful loss to the Atlanta Hawks on January 22nd that would ultimately spark an enormous run to close out the season, his numbers were discouraging at best. He averaged just 11.1 points per game on horrible shooting splits of 38.4 percent from the field and 29.2 percent from deep. Despite formerly being a renowned assist-man, he logged just 4.8 dimes while turning it over 2.8 times per contest. He had a plus/minus of -3.0 and a net rating of -5.1.

Then, enter the switch flip. From that point on, Rubio was an entirely different player. He would finish the regular season averaging 16 points per game on efficient shooting clips of 46.2 percent from the field and a mind-blowing 43.8 percent from deep while upping his assists to 6.1 per contest and reducing his turnovers to 2.5. He posted an insane plus/minus of 11.3 and a net rating of 17.8.

As he became comfortable with his teammates and the Jazz system, he absolutely flourished. It was an almost unprecedented mid-season turnaround. However, the MIP Award isn’t handed out for midseason turnarounds, instead it’s an award given based on improvement from one year to the next.

Unfortunately, while Rubio’s strong finish did indeed give him a career year in many aspects, when balanced out with his slow start, it didn’t look like that massive of an improvement. Rubio got much better overall last year, but not enough to contend for the Most Improved Player Award.

That said, if Rubio can find a way to maintain his play from the second half of the 2017-18 campaign throughout the 2018-19 season, then his impact and his numbers are going to skyrocket to a level that simply won’t be able to be ignored. Shooting 46.2 percent from the field and 43.8 percent from deep likely aren’t sustainable for a full season, but if he’s even in that range and sets a new career-high in points per game while being a solid assist-man, I love his chances of winning MIP.

Rubio has been highly acclaimed ever since he joined the league, and while he didn’t quite live up to the hype in Minnesota, he slowly started to turn heads in the latter part of this past season, particularly in the playoff matchup against the Oklahoma City Thunder. If Rubio keeps that up, he may have enough attention among awards voters to be in a great spot to contend for and ultimately win the Most Improved Player Award.

He’ll have to prove that the latter half of last season was no fluke and get off to a much better start this year, but with the continuity that he’ll benefit from heading into a new season for the first time in his career, I believe that it’s an absolutely reasonable expectation.