Jimmy Butler Wins Most Improved Player Award

http://probasketballtalk.nbcsports.com/2015/05/06/report-bulls-jimmy-butler-wins-most-improved-player/



Report: Bulls’ Jimmy Butler wins Most Improved Player
Dan Feldman May 6, 2015, 7:43 PM EDT





Jimmy Butler reportedly rejected a four-year, $40 million contract extension before the season.

It was the right move.

The Bulls guard has improved immensely, and he should get a max contract this summer.

First, he’ll get another reward for his progress.

Marc Stein of ESPN:


Marc Stein ✔@ESPNSteinLine
Story going online now: ESPN sources say Chicago's Jimmy Butler will be named NBA's Most Improved Player later this week
4:29 PM - 6 May 2015
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Butler has supplanted Derrick Rose and Joakim Noah as Chicago’s best player. There was one a school of thought Butler needed to play off Rose to be effective, but the shooting guard has put that to rest this season. Butler is filling a bigger role offensively and got even more efficiently in the process – hard feats to pull off in tandem. Plus, he has remained a lockdown defender.

There are only two knocks in Butler’s Most Improved Player credentials:

1. He was underrated last season, so – if we all agree on his value this season – his improvement has been overrated.

2. Butler missed 17 games due to injury this year, which limits the amount of production he supplied Chicago over his production last year.

But those are small flaws in an otherwise impressive résumé. This is well-deserved.



bob



.

I bet he'll soon be able to afford his own basketball.

Sam

Nice award almost no matter what the circumstances are.  These types of awards always show that someone worked a little harder, got a little smarter, or both.  In a league with so much talent these types of awards are probably tough to give to only one guy.

Who was the Celtics most improved player from 2014 to 2015?  I think that I would have to pick Olynyk (even though he missed a bunch of games due to injury) figuring that many guys who ended the season were not playing for Boston the year prior.