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Rudy Gobert Clear Frontrunner For Most Improved Player

By Clint Peterson

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Apr 1, 2015; Salt Lake City, UT, USA; Utah Jazz center Rudy Gobert (27) dunks the ball against Denver Nuggets forward Wilson Chandler (21) during the first half at EnergySolutions Arena. Mandatory Credit: Russ Isabella-USA TODAY Sports

NBA award ballots went out today. 125 NBA media members — print and broadcast — cast their votes for each category, submitting five names for each, ranked in order. Rudy Gobert is a legitimate candidate for Most Improved Player of 2014-15, but can he win it?

Until he went down with an elbow injury about a month ago, many felt as though the MIP was Jimmy Butler‘s award to lose. While he recently returned, in his absence, Rudy Gobert captured the hearts and attention of NBA fans and media at large while Butler sat out rehabbing.

Often, when it comes to awards like these, it’s out of sight, out of mind, despite there being multiple deserving candidates. And Jimmy Butler has been that latter while Rudy Gobert set a monthly rebound record and filled highlight reels on SportCenter.

The Utah Jazz have been making a splash while the Chicago Bulls seem likely to have yet another interesting playoff series or two before heading home for the summer early again. It’s a retread script in the Windy City, giving Gobert and the Jazz a potential opening to sound a foghorn when it comes to the award.

It’s difficult to quantify just how large a leap Rudy Gobert has made in a season, more or less playing so well that the Utah Jazz were motivated to move a recent #3 NBA Draft pick to open up the floor for him, regardless of demands from the Player Who Shall Not Be Named.

That we are virtually incapable of even measuring such an untenable step forward in itself speaks for the candidacy of Rudy Gobert for Most Improved Player in the NBA. I’ve asked some of the sharpest NBA minds I know how we might weigh such a spring, and together we are at a loss, it’s so great a surge forward.

There is a former Utah Jazz player who has won the MIP award, but only after leaving Utah. In 1996-97, Isaac Austin took home the hardware after making a leap from overseas. Drafted by the Utah Jazz in 1991, Ike Austin was released from a very deep Utah team that was about to make consecutive deep playoff runs.

That we are virtually incapable of even measuring such an untenable step forward in itself speaks for the candidacy of Rudy Gobert for Most Improved Player in the NBA

Austin averaged 5.1 points, 4.9 rebounds and 1.2 assists, but shot only .439 field goals for the Philadelphia 76ers in his final season in the NBA before playing in Europe for two years, only to be re-signed to the NBA by the Miami Heat in 1996, who needed a backup big man for Alonzo Mourning.

Ike Austin went from playing 14 minutes per game in his last NBA season to 23 for the Heat, winning the MIP award with an effort of 9.7 points, 5.8 rebounds, 1.2 assists and .509 field goals made in the 1996-97 season.

The Heat would go on to be defeated by Michael Jordan‘s Bulls in the 1997 Eastern Conference NBA Finals, while Ike Austin would get even better the following season, only to be traded to the then-lowly Los Angeles Clippers.

The entire culture of the Utah Jazz was changed by Gobert’s defense…the monumental Frenchman is always waiting to clean up mistakes like a massive eraser

The trade ultimately ruined Austin’s appetite for the game while also coming back to bite Pat Riley in the buttocks when Zo Mourning was suspended for the deciding game after the infamous Jeff Van Gundy ankle-biting fracas during the Heat’s 1998 playoffs bid.

The leap Isaac Austin made was an impactful one, but nothing so stunning as the one Rudy Gobert has made.

Gobert went from playing barely nine minutes per game in 2013-14 to nearly 26 minutes per game in 2014-15, proving himself invaluable to the Jazz’s success on a nightly basis. All this while picking Utah up and putting them on his back defensively.

The entire culture of the Utah Jazz was changed by Gobert’s defense, allowing every position stretching outward from the rim to gamble a little more on defense, to guard without fear, knowing the monumental Frenchman is always waiting to clean up mistakes like a massive eraser.

Adjusted for minutes, Isaac Austin’s season he won Most Improved Player vs Rudy Gobert this year

There’s a big difference in the leap Rudy Gobert has made, as compared to Ike Austin, when adjusted for minutes. Per BasketballReference.com:

Rudy Gobert, candidate for Most Improved Player in the NBA, an historic leap in production in a season

According to Kevin Pelton’s Millsap Doctrine — simply stated, that a player’s production will increase in step with his minutes — Ike Austin should have done what he did, despite Jerry Sloan’s reluctance to play him in Utah.

Meanwhile, Rudy Gobert is an anomaly, making a jump in production the standards and parameters of the theory would not have predicted.

There’s room here for another entire set of statistics, ones that measure leaps in production. In the meantime, voters gon’ vote without the benefit of a gaping statistical hole when it comes to the NBA’s Most Improved Player award, one Rudy Gobert stands solidly above and beyond in.

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