Houston (USA), May 25 (EFE) .- Power forward Julius Randle of the New York Knicks was named the NBA’s Most Improved Player during the regular season and surpassed power forward Jerami Grant of the Detroit Pistons and Michael Porter Jr. of the Denver Nuggets.
Randle averages 24.1 points; 10.2 rebounds and 6.0 assists, which placed them in the top 20 in the NBA in all three categories, while playing 37.6 minutes per game, the longest in the NBA.
Legendary Larry Bird, Wilt Chamberlain, Oscar Robertson, Russell Westbrook and Nikola Jokic (who also did it this season) are the only other players to have a 24-10-6 season.
Beyond his stats, Randle is the undisputed leader of a Knicks who have missed the Playoffs for the past seven years and weren’t expected to break this season. Instead, they finished 41-31 and finished fourth in the Eastern Conference.
Randle made a disappointing postseason debut Sunday in Game 1 with 6 of 23 shots from the field and 15 points in the Knicks’ 107-105 loss to the Atlanta Hawks.
That came after he had two of his three 40-point games this season against the Hawks.
The former Lakers scored 493 points in the vote to finish well ahead of Grant, who got the other two first-place votes and reached 140 points. Porter Jr. was third with 138 points.
Randle’s biggest jump came from the 3-point range, where he was 41% correct after never reaching more than 34%. He also had six triple-doubles, half his career total.
(c) EFE Agency