Nickeil Alexander-Walker wins NBA's Most Improved Player amid career year in first season with Hawks

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Nickeil Alexander-Walker is the 2025-26 Most Improved Player, the NBA announced on Friday. Alexander-Walker won the award over fellow finalists Deni Avdija and Jalen Duren. Interestingly, Avdija and Duren were first-time All-Stars this season, while Alexander-Walker was not. Seven of the past nine winners were first-time All-Star selections, but for the second straight year following Dyson Daniels' win last season, a member of the Atlanta Hawks has bucked that trend.

Daniels, at least, was a former lottery pick whose potential was well-documented. Alexander-Walker's ascent to Most Improved Player was far less anticipated. Alexander-Walker was the No. 17 pick in the 2019 NBA Draft, but after two-and-a-half years in New Orleans, he was dealt to Portland in the CJ McCollum trade. Only a day later, he was shipped off again, this time to Utah. The Jazz kept him for roughly a year before sending him to Minnesota, seemingly as an afterthought in a larger deal involving Mike Conley and Russell Westbrook.

Though his scoring numbers went down in Minnesota, he reinvented himself as a star reserve defender, and after making just 32.9% of his 3-pointers in his first three seasons, he shot 38.4% from deep with the Wolves. At that point, he had seemingly carved out a career-long niche as a 3-and-D role player, but Minnesota, facing a second apron crunch, ultimately elected to re-sign Naz Reid and Julius Randle over Alexander-Walker in the summer of 2025.