Rockets guard Aaron Brooks will be named the winner of the NBA Most Improved Player award on Thursday, according to a person with knowledge of the voting.
Brooks will be the first Rockets player to win one of the league’s performance awards since Steve Francis was a co-rookie of the year 10 years ago.
Congrats to Aaron Brooks for the achievement. He improved his PER (up to 16.0 from 12.9), his TS% (up to .549 from .521) and his eFG% (up to .511 from .476).
Readers will remember that I have been saying for some time that I did not feel Brooks was deserving of this award. Regardless, whether he actually improved or not, the greater point is that Aaron Brooks established himself as a legit scoring threat this season. For a team that will hope to win through a multi-faceted attack, that was a big development.
Some are still concerned by his overall playmaking, but I am not at all worried. In this system, a traditional point guard is not required. Even if he does not improve one bit going forward, Brooks’ current skillset, with his ability to score quickly without using too many dribbles, fits this offense perfectly.
The focus now turns to finding that last piece of the puzzle for the Houston Rockets.
