Here’s The NBA’s Most Surprising Player This Season

Every year, the NBA awards its Most Improved Player honor to whoever displays the most growth from one season to the next. This year, the list of betting favorites includes guys like Dyson Daniels, Cade Cunningham, Christian Braun and Ivica Zubac.

While important to recognize, this award is about linear growth more than shocking the world. So, I’m proposing an unofficial award for the Most Surprising Player of the Year, and I want to nominate Nikola Vucevic for this season’s pick.

Why Nikola Vucevic Is So Surprising

The 2023-24 season was not kind to the former All-Star big man. His true shooting was in the 27th percentile (54.2 percent), while his Defensive Estimated Plus-Minus (minus-0.6, 34th percentile) was its lowest since 2014-15. He was no longer an efficient scorer, and his defense had gone from passable to problematic.

Given he was entering his age-34 season, it seemed like the downward spiral would only continue and make the three-year, $60 million extension he signed in 2023 look like a complete sunk cost.

Instead, something miraculous happened. Vucevic is putting together the most efficient scoring season of his career (61.7 percent true shooting) on volume (20.7 points per 75 possessions) surpassing any total he’s previously posted since joining the Chicago Bulls. His plus-2.3 Offensive EPM is the highest it’s been since 2019-20. Defensively, he looks more like the below-average defender he was in 2022-23 rather than the walking weak point he was last season.

More than anything, Vucevic has improbably outplayed his $20 million payday he’s received this season.

In his book, “The Midrange Theory,” current NBA analyst and former Director of Basketball Research for the Milwaukee Bucks, Seth Partnow, discusses a formula teams use to estimate a player’s monetary value.

In its essence, the formula involves multiplying how many points a player is “worth” by the amount a win “costs” in a given season (to learn more about this formula, be sure to check out this article I wrote for Forbes).

This year, a win is worth roughly $3.4 million. Meanwhile, even if Vucevic didn’t play another minute this regular season, he’s produced an estimated 8.1 wins for the Bulls (per Dunks & Threes). So, his production has been worth $27.5 million to them — $7.5 million more than he’s being paid. For reference, in 2023-24, he performed like a $14.3 million player.

How many times does a player who — prior to the season — is viewed as having one of the worst contracts in basketball end up outperforming their annual salary? If I had to guess, I would say the answer is almost never.

Can Vucevic Keep This Up?

For any analytic nerds reading this, I’m sure you shouted “shooting variance” to yourself at least once or twice throughout the piece. And yes, Vucevic is shooting the ball basically better than ever in his career.

On the season, he’s shooting 55.2 percent from midrange and 40.4 percent on threes, both of which are career-highs.

It isn’t uncommon for veteran players to become better shooters as they age and their athleticism wanes (Jason Kidd knows a thing or two about this). So, maybe this is what’s happened for Vucevic. But more than likely, he’s just benefitting from an extended hot shooting stretch. Eventually (probably next season), his numbers will regress back to the mean.

Still, the sheer feat of outplaying a $20 million contract on a team most assumed would tank this season deserves respect. Vucevic isn’t resigned to collecting his last huge paycheck and fading into the sunset. He wants to be a starting-level contributor in this league. For those reasons, he’s my inaugural winner of the Most Surprising Player award.