The NBA’s least improved players are a funky bunch to scrutinize. For starters, the label shouldn’t exclusively be interpreted as a a criticism. Consistency is good! Improvement is hard! Sometimes it doesn’t even make sense to evolve within a context that doesn’t call for growth!
But there are also a whole bunch of players who’ve either plateaued or regressed this season, perceptible disappointments who should be on an upward trajectory but have either failed to rectify an ongoing weakness or gotten noticeably worse at something that was an established strength. Some on this list have struggled to adjust to a new system, or beside new teammates, or in a different role. Others have simply underachieved. And some are still incredibly talented All-Stars who, to a certain extent, have squandered some of their potential. So without further ado, here are seven players who haven’t shown the type of progress that was anticipated.
Evan Mobley
This is painful. I love Mobley, still think he’s an incredible two-way player with a bright future, and recognize how unfair it is to judge anyone by whatever my own expectations happened to be coming into this season. But when someone who was positioned to be an MVP candidate takes this kind of side step on offense, it’s impossible to ignore. Combine diminished production with less efficiency and negligible expansion in an offense that really struggles when he plays without Donovan Mitchell, and Mobley unfortunately epitomizes what a list like this is going for.
The 24-year-old is averaging about 10 more touches than he did last year, and his true usage has never been higher. But he isn’t as aggressive as he could be. Mobley doesn’t need to play angry, but he should punish opponents who are content with treating him like someone who won’t devour a physical mismatch. This recent play that kicked off a game against the Denver Nuggets shows how far he needs to go before defenses universally treat a point guard switching onto him like a five-alarm fire:
Darius Garland sets a ball screen, and the 6-foot-2 Jalen Pickett finds himself on the 6-foot-11 Mobley. Instead of outmuscling Denver’s shortest player, Mobley takes three dribbles trying to drive around him, is forced to spin back into a crowd, gets stuck, kicks a pass back out to Garland a beat too late, and then watches him miss a contested shot. It’s not concerning by itself, but too many plays like this (and there are a bunch of them) are symptomatic of the Cavaliers’ disappointing season.
Part of me feels like I’m critiquing a prodigious chef who’s able to convincingly rustle up a diverse platter of tasty goodness. Every time I sit down at their restaurant, I expect one of the most delectable meals of my life, only to walk out the door thinking they should trim the menu and make their best dishes as flavorful as possible.
Mobley can either outfox or overpower pretty much whoever’s guarding him. He’s long, tall, smart, fast, and explosive. He could have an unblockable turnaround jumper. He could hone an automatic floater from the pocket. He could duck into the paint and draw three or four more fouls per game than he does. But none of that stuff has materialized on a consistent basis this season. His game has neither expanded into areas that make sense nor narrowed around what he’s already excellent at. It’s year five. He made second-team All-NBA last season. Hollow efforts like the one below should not still be happening:
None of this is to suggest he won’t ever average over 20 points per game while demanding instant double-teams, melting one-on-one coverage, and living at the center of a system that revolves around his rare collection of physical tools. That’s still on the table. Individual growth is not linear, and the Cavaliers have been wracked by injuries to some important complementary pieces. As the reigning Defensive Player of the Year, he’s still an elite, game-changing deterrent on that side of the ball. But if his overall contributions amount to a facsimile of Bam Adebayo, the ramifications will border on existential for by far the most expensive roster in the NBA. Serious championship contention hinges on Mobley being better than that—a player we haven’t consistently seen this season.
Jaren Jackson Jr.
It’s hard to find a Jackson statistic from this year that’s measurably above his career average. Points, assists, blocks, boards, free throw attempts, usage rate, true shooting percentage, and PER are all at or below what he submitted before the season started. If he were 32 years old, that would be terrific. But JJJ is somehow only 26. It’s too early and a little dramatic to say the Grizzlies regret signing him to a five-year, $205 million extension in July, but they also can’t be head over heels with what they’ve seen over the past couple of months. If they were, questions about his trade value wouldn’t be so loud.
Jackson sits at the crux of a theoretical question I kept asking myself before deciding to include him in this article. If a 6-foot-10 power forward—with the longest wingspan at his natural position—has, by his eighth season, established himself as an anemic rebounder, is it fair to suddenly ding him for not getting better on the glass? By itself, maybe not. But to me, in this specific case where you can combine Jackson’s rebounding struggles with other frustrating traits that feel correctable—boneheaded fouls, hurried decision-making, an inconsistent 3-point shot, etc.—it becomes something more relevant and bothersome.
Jackson is a two-time All-Star, which makes watching him this season all the more frustrating. About 16 percent of JJJ’s minutes are spent in foul trouble right now. In addition to that being the worst mark of his career, it’s also the highest number in BBall Index’s entire database, which goes back a dozen years. (Jackson’s previous high—low?—was 7.6 percent back in 2020.)
He’s drawing fewer fouls than last year, scoring fewer points in the paint, and (as someone whose assists are spare) committing some of the silliest pass turnovers in the league. Near the end of Memphis’s meltdown against Oklahoma City last Friday night, he telegraphed a lollipop, watched it get intercepted, and then immediately committed a bad foul with OKC in the bonus. It was mindless but not surprising.
Some of Jackson’s shots are strange enough to make you wonder whether he’s taking them just to defy instructions from the coaching staff. Or maybe he doesn’t believe any of his teammates can walk and chew gum at the same time. In a recent game against the Spurs, he took three of the more half-baked shots you’ll ever see from someone this good:
After he averaged a career-high 34.6 points per 100 possessions last season, Jackson is down to 28.8. And his net differential on Memphis’s offense is –5.5 points per 100 possessions—the seventh-worst mark among all players who are averaging at least 30 minutes per game. JJJ’s impact defending the rim has mostly been excellent, but there’s something spotty worth mentioning. There have been 15 games this season where he hasn’t blocked a single shot. That happened 17 times all of last season, 12 times the year before that, and in just six games back in 2023, when Jackson won Defensive Player of the Year.
It should be mentioned that some of his uneven play is connected to a snakebitten roster and, in particular, Ja Morant’s frequent unavailability. Most of JJJ’s more critical numbers go up when he shares the court with Morant. Those numbers aren’t a coincidence. But then there are also plays where you see how Morant’s well-documented shortcomings make life harder for his most talented teammate. In the play below, JJJ posts up Marvin Bagley III as Wizards head coach Brian Keefe waves Tre Johnson off Morant to shrink the floor:
Morant doesn’t cut through the paint or run over and set an off-ball screen on Cedric Coward’s man—anything to occupy Johnson’s attention. Instead, he stands still and lets Washington ignore him off the ball. No one should be shocked if both JJJ and Ja are wearing new jerseys after the trade deadline.
And on that note …
Ja Morant
To say Morant has been a shadow of his former self this season would be the highest compliment anyone has ever given to a shadow. His stark decline is truly, in basketball terms, tragic. Glimpses of the acrobatic visionary who was on track to become an all-time great point guard just a few years ago can still be seen from time to time. His assist rate is at a career-high mark, and the athleticism that helped catapult him to stardom still flashes occasionally. If you watched Morant score 40 points in a recent overtime loss against the Philadelphia 76ers, you’d wonder why the Memphis Grizzlies are so desperate to trade him. The game showcased unteachable instincts that once made him so great.
Alas, aside from a toxic contract that’s fully guaranteed through 2028, Morant simply hasn’t been anything close to that player on a consistent basis. (He didn’t crack my most recent ballot for The Ringer’s Top 100 ranking.) There are 90 players who are averaging at least 15 points per game this season. Morant’s true shooting percentage ranks dead last among them, a brutal 7.9 percentage points below the league average. He scored 35 points in the season opener and didn’t cross the 30-point mark again until that aforementioned loss in Philly on December 30.
In his third year, on his way to winning Most Improved Player, Morant’s scoring average soared from 19.1 points per game to 27.4. This season, Morant is back to averaging 19.0 points per game. That’s not the most holistic way to capture any player’s impact, but in this case, it’s almost poetic evidence of his fall. There are people in the league who’ve watched the Grizzlies play their team and winced when he checked out of the game. Numbers back that up. For the first time since his rookie season, Memphis is underwater when he’s on the court and considerably better across the board without him.
Seeing the Grizzlies struggle with Morant on defense is understandable. Watching them struggle to score is another story. The Grizzlies’ offensive rating is 5.1 percentage points below league average when Morant plays, by far the worst mark of his career, and only 1.1 percentage points below league average when he does not. These are disturbing numbers that also pass the eye test, causing some people around the league to rationalize what they’ve seen by wondering whether he’s playing through a serious injury or trying to Jimmy Butler his way out of town.
Maybe? But I don’t think the Grizzlies would be running designed backdoor lobs for him if he couldn’t jump. The more likely answer is simple wear and tear. He’s only 26 years old but hardly durable. Morant can still explode off a ball screen and get into the paint, but his slippery eel quality is less effective than it used to be, particularly when defenders duck under a pick to meet him on the other side.
Some of Morant’s struggles are unlucky—it’d be nice to have Zach Edey, Ty Jerome, Brandon Clarke, and Scotty Pippen Jr. in the lineup—and others can be explained by the well-known limitations of a skill set that is no longer viable in today’s NBA. (Not being able to shoot and needing the ball in your hands at all times is bad!) Hopefully, somehow, Morant revives his on-court reputation and realizes he isn’t good enough to act petulant at every turn. Regardless, the days when he garnered MVP votes and automatic bids to All-Star Weekend almost definitely aren’t coming back.
Rob Dillingham
Given the stakes, this is a crisis. After a lost rookie season that was mostly spent on the Timberwolves’ bench, Dillingham has gone from being one of the least effective scorers in the league to literally ranking last in true shooting percentage among players who’ve logged at least 300 minutes. He’s somehow made only 38 percent of his attempts at the basket, down from 62 percent a year ago.
But the struggles stretch well beyond a drop in efficiency and production. Dillingham hasn’t been able to lock down steady minutes on a team that would be thrilled to see him emerge as the dynamic ball handler it so desperately needs. Some of his mistakes would be acceptable if they were made by a confident young player who’s testing the limits of his own imagination. But Dillingham’s blunders are a toxic cocktail of fear and confusion. He’ll throw the ball away because he isn’t sure where his teammates are supposed to be. He’ll do the defense a favor by prematurely picking up his dribble. He’ll cut at the wrong time or fill the wrong lane in transition and screw up Minnesota’s spacing. He’ll pass up open 3s the defense wants him to take, and from afar, it appears it’s because he’s afraid to miss:
It’s a steady accumulation of brain farts and cardinal sins that has helped catapult Bones Hyland ahead of Dillingham in Minnesota’s rotation. How the Timberwolves acquired him is irrelevant for the purpose of this column—for those who don’t remember, two years ago they gave the Spurs a pick swap in 2030 and a first-round pick in 2031—but his flat-line trajectory is especially hard to ignore for that very reason. Dillingham has very little margin for error in the situation he was drafted into. So far, he’s needed a ton of it.
Ochai Agbaji
After a promising year in which he seemingly solidified himself as a long-term 3-and-D cog who made perfect sense in just about any scenario, Agbaji has seen his minutes and efficiency plunge through a trap door this season. We’re talking about someone who made 39.9 percent of the four 3-point shots he attempted per game last season. Now? He’s 7-for-42 on the season.
The Raptors’ addition of Brandon Ingram should've helped Agbaji, and, in a way, it has. The only rotation player in the league who’s seen a higher percentage of their 3s be open this year is Cam Johnson (who, um, became teammates with Nikola Jokic).
But Agbaji just hasn’t been able to capitalize. No player’s effective field goal percentage has dropped further than his this season. He’s shooting 38 percent on driving layups, which isn’t necessarily his bread-and-butter … but still! Thirty-eight percent! That number somehow looks even worse when you see the play below. Agbaji passes up two decent looking 3s and then makes Simone Fontecchio look like prime LeBron James:
It’s too soon to completely give up on someone who looked like a serviceable role player last year. Agbaji is only 25 years old and is about to become a restricted free agent. In addition to dealing with back spasms, such a massive reduction in minutes, touches, and shots probably hasn’t done wonders for his rhythm or confidence. But Toronto may find another team willing to buy low on someone who previously proved they can make a two-way impact.
Paolo Banchero
Before the Orlando Magic melted down in Toronto a few weeks ago, Paolo Banchero spent most of the game looking like a superstar. He finished with 23 points, 15 rebounds, and 10 assists. Late in the fourth quarter, Magic play-by-play announcer Dante Marchitelli called it “a breakout performance.” Offensively, for the most part, it was. Last Wednesday night in Brooklyn, he did it again: 30 points on 19 shots, 14 rebounds, six assists, and a game-winning 3-pointer in overtime.
In both contests, Paolo was pretty efficient and did a good job balancing composure and aggression, rarely trying to jam a square peg in a round hole. It made you wonder why every Magic game couldn’t feature a dominant amalgamation of Banchero’s power and vision, with relentless trips to the free throw line and some of the smartest passes you’ll ever see from someone his size.
Those lofty expectations are a major reason why Banchero’s fourth season has been so disheartening. His talent should punch him through as a virtual lock to make the All-Star team, but he is instead the scapegoat of an injury-plagued disappointment that's fighting to stay out of the play-in. Some of that blame directed at Banchero’s numbers is fair. Some of it’s the understandable adjustment to a dramatically different role that would like him to turn less into more.
For the Magic to reach whatever their ceiling is with this group, Banchero must cede the floor to a growing list of teammates—Franz Wagner, Desmond Bane, Jalen Suggs, Anthony Black, and (dare I say) Tristan da Silva—who can handle a bigger piece of the pie. An offense that leans too hard on any one player will succumb to its own predictability, which translates to that player being asked to sacrifice for the greater good before he gets to really spread his wings as an individual. That’s a very, very hard thing to do, and Banchero’s willingness to make an earnest effort for most of this season should be lauded.
“I feel good,” Banchero recently said after his return from a groin strain that sidelined him for 10 games. “I’ve just been, [as] I said earlier in the season, trying to pick my spots and just play the role that I’m trying to, being asked to play for this team and just be that consistent force on both sides of the ball, whether it’s guarding somebody or making the extra pass.”
Banchero’s true usage rate is down 11.5 percent from where it was last year, one of the largest drops in the league. That’s fine, if not a good sign for Orlando. But something still isn’t clicking quite like it should. If you’re going to reduce the weight on an All-Star talent’s shoulders and make a genuine effort to surround him with more sensible weapons, the onus is then on him to take advantage of the spacing and simplified looks they help create. Instead, Banchero’s true shooting percentage has remained largely the same—and well below league average.
On one hand, it’s been encouraging to see Banchero shift so many of his long 2s to the paint. Cutting down the pull-up 3s is a plus, too. But on the other hand, not only is his effective field goal percentage at an all-time low, but of the 251 players who’ve logged at least 500 minutes this season, Banchero ranks 246th in halfcourt shot making (which measures a player’s efficiency while adjusting for how difficult their field goal attempts are). Averaging the fewest shots of his career is not alarming. He’s making better decisions and creating opportunities for teammates against defenses that load up to slow him down. But he could still be averaging the most points of his career, or somewhere near it. Maybe it still happens after Wagner and Suggs rejoin the lineup and Banchero finds himself back in lineups that have been extremely successful when they actually see the floor.
Until then, as was the case through the first three years of his career, the Magic just aren’t very good with Banchero on the court and are still, statistically, better when he’s on the bench. Orlando’s offensive rating with Paolo and no Franz is 0.7 points above league average. When both sit, it’s 1.7 points below league average. Not all of that can be blamed on any one person. But in addition to needing better health luck, the Magic clearly can’t get where they want to go unless they win minutes with their best player on the floor. Banchero needs to be better.
Dyson Daniels
Let’s start with the good here. Daniels’s defense is still exceptional and he still takes on the hardest assignment every night. He’s a good cutter, one of the best offensive rebounding guards in the league, boasts a trusty floater, and is quietly averaging six assists per game. At the time, I thought the four-year, $100 million extension he signed over the summer was a massive coup for the Hawks and an unnecessary capitulation for Daniels, who took a significant leap last season and is still only 22 years old.
I didn’t want to toss him on here, one season after he won Most Improved Player, but amidst Atlanta’s season from hell, something about Daniels, who I very much like, has left me cold. And by something, I mean the fact that such an uneven outside shooter has seen his 3-point percentage backflip off a ledge. It’s one of the most important stats in the league. It can also be fickle, and I’m increasingly willing to overlook poor shooters who impact winning elsewhere. But when you fall from a modest 34 percent to, um, 11.3 percent (!!!!!!) it’s impossible to ignore.
Adding insult to injury, only Neemias Queta, John Collins, Amen Thompson, and Rudy Gobert are taking easier 3s than the ones Daniels has launched this year. Pretty much all of them are catch-and-shoot with all the time in the world to let it fly. Nothing is off the dribble. Nothing comes off a screen. None are with a hand in his face. According to Sportradar, he ranks in the 98th percentile on wide-open 3s, where he’s 5-for-22 on the season. Not what you want.
These shots are also a tangible reason why, among 80 players who average over 30 minutes per game, Daniels ranks 78th in offensive estimated plus-minus. This isn’t a bad player and Atlanta’s offense isn’t atrocious when he’s on the court. But if this shooting carries into the playoffs (assuming the Hawks even get there this season), opponents will eventually play him off the floor. Hopefully we never reach that point. But right now it’s fair to look at someone who got significantly better last year, appeared to turn a corner in his most questionable area, and then point out the letdown that’s ensued.
Honorable mentions: Zaccharie Risacher, Nikola Jovic, Jalen Williams, Bilal Coulibaly, most of the Sacramento Kings, and, making a return appearance from last year’s list, Brandin Podziemski.
