The NBA has announced that Phoenix Suns guard Goran Dragic has been named the NBA’s Most Improved Player for the 2013-14 NBA Season. Dragic won in a land-slide over Pacers wing Lance Stephenson and Pelicans second-year forward Anthony Davis.
The NBA has added some transparency to the voting process, revealing who each media member voted for in every category, like Dragic’s 250-point win over Stephenson. Here’s how the voting broke down:
The win by Dragic mirrors Dime’s own end of season awards, where our writers and contributors voted Dragic as most deserving of the MIP award. Most agreed it was the Year of the Dragon as Dragic averaged a career-high 20.3 PPG this season along with 5.9 APG and 3.2 RPG. He also shot a career-high .504 from the field and connected on better than 40 precent of his three-point attempts. Dragic was the only player in the NBA this season to shoot better than 50 percent from the field and 40 percent from beyond the arc.
Dragic started 75 of the 76 games he appeared in for a Suns team that finished with a record of 48-34, one game behind the Mavericks, who claimed the final playoff spot in the Western Conference. The Suns excelled despite the 43-game absence of summer acqusition Eric Bledsoe and many attribute their fight for a playoff berth until the season’s final two games to the contributions of Dragic.
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