The Whiteboard: Which second-year NBA players have improved most?

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Last week we looked at the surging New York Knicks through the prism of the individual improvement of Julius Randle and R.J. Barrett. Randle will likely run away with this season’s Most Improved Player award but Barrett’s development from his rookie season has been just as essential to the Knicks’ shocking success.

However, among second-year players, Barrett’s overall growth doesn’t even make the top five biggest leaps, at least according to the estimates of Box Plus-Minus. This is a box score-derived estimate of a player’s overall impact, expressed in points per 100 possessions. By the difference between rookie and second-season Box Plus-Minus, here are the most improved second-year players this season.

Zion Williamson, New Orleans Pelicans (BPM Change: +3.5)

Zion’s rookie season was interrupted, by injuries at the beginning and the COVID pandemic in the middle, and came to a disappointing end in the Orlando bubble as the Pelicans went 2-6 and ultimately missed the playoffs. But he was still incredibly productive throughout and seeing him improve this much in a box score derived measure of overall impact is remarkable.

Williamson hasn’t done much from the 3-point line this season but he’s bumped up his 2-point and free-throw percentages by healthy margins with meaningful increases in his assists, steals and blocks per 100 possessions. Even with a usage and turnover rate that have remained essentially flat, increasing his assist rate and scoring efficiency speaks to him inhabiting an offensive role with even more offensive primacy and thriving.

Darius Garland, Cleveland Cavaliers (BPM Change: +4.1)

Shooting was supposed to be Garland’s most reliable offensive skill as a rookie but he finished the season at 40.1 percent from the field and 35.5 percent from beyond the 3-point arc. This season he’s looking much more like the dynamic three-level scoring threat his predraft scouting profile hinted at. He’s driving more often and finishing at a much-improved rate around the basket, making himself a legit pull-up threat both inside and beyond the arc and playing off his fellow creators as a significant spot-up shooter (44.3 percent on catch-and-shoot 3s).

The increased efficiency in his scoring profile has helped Garland be more successful as a facilitator as well, increasing his assist rate with a drop in his turnover rate. All that is making him and Collin Sexton look more viable as a long-term backcourt combination than they did at any point last season.

Daniel Gafford, Washington Wizards (BPM Change: +4.1)

After a midseason trade moved him from the Chicago Bulls to the Wizards, Gafford has really made the most of his opportunities. He’s still playing just under 20 minutes per game and has only appeared in 11 games for Washington, but per 36 minutes he’s been averaging 22.0 points, 12.1 rebounds, 1.8 steals and 4.3 blocks, shooting 66.2 percent from the field.

He plays a very restricted role — crashing the boards and finishing around the basket on offense, trying to block everything at the other end. But he’s been very impressive in his limited run and improved even as his minutes have scaled up. He could end up as a very useful piece for the Wizards down the road.

Jordan Poole, Golden State Warriors (BPM Change: +5.7)

Last year, Jordan Poole was a shooting guard who couldn’t shoot. He made 14 starts for the injury-ravaged Warriors and played 1200 minutes but finished the season shooting 33.3 percent from the field and 27.9 percent on 3-pointers. His improvement this season looks enormous by Box Plus-Minus and is driven primarily by respectable shooting percentages — 42.6 percent from the field, 35.2 percent on 3-pointers, 88.5 percent from the free-throw line. But it’s worth noting that even with this dramatic improvement BPM still estimates his overall impact as below that of a generic average player, an indicator of just how much he struggled last season.

His improvement this year has been a welcome sign for the Warriors but he’s probably still a bit player in any future iteration of this team that’s competing for championships again.

De’Andre Hunter, Atlanta Hawks (BPM Change: +6.4)

Hunter has played just two games since suffering a knee injury in late January, returning for a pair of games in late March before going back out of the lineup and undergoing a minor procedure to deal with lingering swelling and soreness in the same knee. So Hunter’s improvement can be taken with the requisite grains of salt for a 20-game sample but he looked like a dramatically different player at the beginning of this year.

Last season, Hunter functioned almost exclusively as a spot-up threat and nearly half of his shot attempts were catch-and-shoot 3-pointers. He continued to be effective in that role at the beginning of this season (shooting 38.2 percent on catch-and-shoot 3s) but he also looked incredibly effective creating his own shot on the wing. He ranked in the 74th percentile in scoring efficiency on isolations, the 96th percentile on post-ups and the 67th as a ball-handler in the pick-and-roll. His 2-point percentage surged, he nearly doubled his free-throw attempts per 100 possessions and he upped his assist rate while cutting his turnovers.

Hunter thrived as a complementary creator to Trae Young, using his unique blend of strength, quickness and shot-making to bust exploit whatever opportunity presented itself in the defensive matchups. It will be interesting to see how much of this role is still available to him when he returns, with Bogdan Bogdanovic blossoming in his absence. But either way, the Hawks have to feel incredibly encouraged by what they saw from him this year.