76ers G Tyrese Maxey named NBA’s Most Improved Player for breakout All-Star campaign
Tyrese Maxey‘s scorching start to the NBA season earned MVP chants from an appreciative Philadelphia crowd.
While his standout season didn’t secure the MVP trophy, it did land him some hardware. The NBA announced Tuesday that Maxey is the winner of the league’s Most Improved Player award.
The Philadelphia 76ers guard earned the honor over Houston Rockets center Alperen Şengün and Chicago Bulls guard Coby White, who were also finalists thanks to their own noteworthy seasons.
Maxey, 23, set the tone in the season’s opening games while filling the void left by a then-holdout James Harden. Through the first three games of the season, Maxey averaged 30.3 points, 6.7 rebounds and 6.3 assists per game while shooting 56% from 3-point distance. The 76ers then traded Harden to the Los Angeles Clippers, leaving the Philadelphia backcourt in Maxey’s hands.
He responded by posting the first 50-point game of his career to cap an 8-1 76ers start. In February, he earned the first All-Star bid of his four-season NBA career. When the season was done, he’d averaged 25.9 points, 6.2 assists and 3.7 rebounds per game while shooting 45% from the field and 37.3% from 3-point distance.
Maxey didn’t come out of nowhere. He averaged 20.3 points, 3.5 assists and 2.9 rebounds per game last season. The season prior earned him Most Improved Player votes after he more than doubled his rookie scoring average (8 points per game) with 17.5 points per game. But 2023-24 saw Maxey ascend to a new stratosphere as he ranked in the top 20 in the league in both points and assists per game.
He did so as Philadelphia’s No. 2 scoring option behind reigning MVP Joel Embiid, though he frequently found himself as the go-to scorer with Embiid sidelined by injury. The 76ers earned the No. 7 seed in the playoffs thanks in part to Maxey’s play keeping the team competitive while Embiid missed 43 of Philadelphia’s 82 regular-season games.