Jordan Poole's Spot in the Race for MIP

As we approach the quarter-mark of the 2021-2022 NBA season, while things are not set in stone, there’s still plenty that we can infer: The Golden State Warriors are obviously good again, Steph Curry is obviously a perennial MVP candidate, and while there’s a clear frontrunner for Most Improved Player, we’ve still got 65 games of basketball left to play for another to take their place.

Miles Bridges of the Charlotte Hornets is having himself a season and a half. Regardless, however, there’s a ton of buzz surrounding Jordan Poole with his increased role after showing he was up to task late last season. It’s going to be a battle down the stretch, especially as things begin to even out a little bit over the course of the season.

The return of Klay Thompson will do one of two things for Poole: It will either reduce his volume entirely and he’ll take some hits to efficiency as his volume of high-percentage shots fluctuates, or it will open up new lineup possibilities where Poole has even more spacing to get into the lane and continue shooting 60% on his 2-point attempts. So far this season, however, the 6’4 guard out of Michigan has been a revelation for the Warriors.

Poole’s shot IQ is improving a lot even in a short stretch of games, with his most recent performance against the Raptors garnering him some comparisons to a famous Warrior of the past few years. Over his last few games, Poole’s averaging 20 points per game on 51/39/89 splits. A lot of this is obviously due to Steph Curry’s gravity drawing the primary ire of defenses, but Poole has shown time and again that he can get his own too.

His competition is pretty solid, however. The aforementioned Bridges, Grizzlies star Ja Morant, and Heat 6th man Tyler Herro all have convincing cases for the award. Poole’s preseason play gave him an advantage over the others as his name was already brought to the media’s attention, but all of the other guys also have solid cases.

Miles Bridges is averaging about 8 points more per game (from 12 to 20), dragging down an extra board and a half as well as some other minor statistical improvements. He’s having a great season… if you just look at his per-game averages. His efficiency is down across the board, a whole 8% of an effective field goal percentage than last season, and his increased volume seems to be the only reason his numbers are going up. He’s taking more, and only making more because of that.

Ja Morant is one of the more popular picks for Most Improved this season, and it’s not like it isn’t warranted: Morant’s seen increases in all his per-game averages (except assists, strangely enough) and has jumped in efficiency as well. The argument for Ja is strong, but so is the argument against him. Jaren Jackson Jr., a floor-spacing big who was drafted for his defense, has already played more games this season than he did last.

Morant’s shot increase has also come on the heels of Jonas Valanciunas’ departure to New Orleans, replaced by Steven Adams who doesn’t take nearly as many shots. It’s a consensus among people who watch basketball that Morant was capable of doing what he’s doing now last season; aside from hitting more threes, there isn’t anything Morant has noticeably improved at. He has a better feel for the game, but so does everyone else on this list. The argument just isn’t convincing enough to make him a runaway favorite.

Tyler Herro has also seen all his numbers creep up as well, but not to the degree of his contemporaries. Herro’s argument in this conversation stems mostly from his impact, which is hard to determine when Kyle Lowry, Jimmy Butler, and Bam Adebayo (all players favored heavily with advanced stats) share plenty of minutes with him. It’s nice to see increased efficiency on increased volume, but Herro’s case isn’t super air-tight.

Jordan Poole probably has the least external explanation for his improvements other than the Warriors have better spacing. Really, though, he played with Steph Curry and his game-warping gravity last season, meaning he should have seen some increased production from his rookie year. It’s no mistake that Poole has some holes to his argument (such as, can he sustain this level of efficiency), but when you look into it, there’s a very real chance the Splash Nephew could not just be a full-time Splash Brother by the end of the year, but he could get some nice hardware other than a ring for it too.

(Photo credit: Ezra Shaw / Getty Images)