5 NBA Players Who Made “The Leap” This Season

Words. Sean Sweeney, Andrew Greif

Every NBA season brings fresh blood and improved players, but only a select few make “The Leap.” It’s the moment we all dream about as kids – when you go from being just another name to the main attraction. This season, many players had a shot at the Most Improved Player award, but only a few have truly arrived. Only five made “The Leap.”

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A “leap” year in the NBA isn’t counted the way a regular calendar defines it. It happens every season and adds, for the lucky few, superstardom. New scenery or a new coach can fuel the leap. So can a new approach, more maturity. But don’t get it twisted. This isn’t the league’s Most Improved Player award. This is about jumping from one class to another. Leaps can take a player from anonymous to a known commodity (think Jeremy Lin), but the best jump from exemplary to elite (take Kyrie Irving).

Here are five who made “the Leap” this season.

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5. BROOK LOPEZ
In the same season the NBA removed “center” from its All-Star vocabulary, it’s ironic Lopez turned in one of the best seasons at that position in years. When Shaquille O’Neal said before the season he would take Lopez over Dwight Howard, it seemed, frankly, insane. But Lopez put up statistics the likes of which haven’t been seen since … O’Neal did it in 1999-2000. The numbers are 23 points, 8.2 rebounds and 2.5 blocks per 36 minutes, numbers that got Lopez his first All-Star selection of his career. Just a year ago he was shooting 10 percentage points worse, averaged half as many boards and only 1.1 blocks per game. A self-professed super fan of comic books, Lopez isn’t Superman quite yet. He still shoots a fairly low percentage (52 percent) and can stand to be more of a presence rebounding. The critique is that he doesn’t have the aggressive attitude to fit his massive body, yet he’s changing there, too, by using his strength and massive proportions to shoot a career-high 69 percent at the rim and average the league’s fifth-best PER. Who’s better? Chris Paul, LeBron James, Kevin Durant. We’d take him over anyone down low now, too.

4. JRUE HOLIDAY
Holiday was easy to miss when he arrived in Philadelphia after just one season at UCLA, the kind of anonymity young, athletic guards get in the NBA simply because there are so many of them. There isn’t any confusion anymore about Holiday’s game. Just 22 years old, Holiday’s 17.0 points and 7.7 assists per 36 minutes were matched only by Tony Parker, Deron Williams and John Wall this season, and only by Russell Westbrook, Jason Kidd, Deron Williams, Chris Paul and Steve Nash in the last decade. Holiday’s shown that he isn’t missing a vital piece to succeed anymore, turning his potential from the open-ended fantasy everyone has about slashing guards to an All-Star level, and maybe even beyond. At the other end, his quickness guarding the perimeter drives opponents’ three-point shooting 11 percentage points south when he steps into a game. His influence increases the 76ers’ pace, improves their three-point shooting and makes the team watchable again. In short, no longer can you pick on him on offense or cheat off him on D.

He caught our eye in the season’s first week when he matched Carmelo Anthony shot-for-shot and nearly point-by-point in a shootout at Madison Square Garden, showing the confidence that comes from being anointed a team’s best weapon. Unlike Andrew Bynum, Philadelphia’s perpetually injured star-in-waiting, Holiday has shown his playmaking and confidence from November isn’t likely to break down anytime soon.

3. PAUL GEORGE
There was a moment where it all changed for George. In the final game of 2012, George ran through Rudy Gay, another long, explosive wing player, in an Indiana win. Over the last five minutes of the close game, it almost felt like George was loosening the shackles with each possession. He dunked to give Indiana the lead, then hit a fadeaway, then grabbed a board and flung a full-court rainbow assist to a teammate. When Gay airballed a jumper over George in the closing seconds, it felt like a statement.

Paul George can thank Danny Granger. Without Indiana’s leading scorer missing basically all of this season with a knee injury, none of this would’ve happened. The All-Star selection. The matchups with LeBron. The 30-point nights, the dunks, the new role as the unquestioned go-to guy on perhaps the second-best team in the Eastern Conference.

Let’s go back in time to 1999-2000 in Toronto. It was there an explosive young swingman came into his own, moving his game from inside to out. Tracy McGrady was never supposed to turn into the best scorer in the game, was never supposed to win scoring titles. He was just a backup singer, the second-in-command to Vince Carter. No one saw the storm coming. The sun blocked it out. But by the end of that season, McGrady’s first as a full-time starter, he was throwing up lines like the one he had in early April against Cleveland: 27 points, six rebounds, nine assists, six blocks, three steals. By the playoffs, he looked like the Raptors’ best player. By the following season in Orlando, he officially blew up, becoming an All-Star and later, arguably the best offensive player in the league.

Because Granger barely played this season, George was shoved into his new role as a leading man, and it took him a few weeks to really get it going. But he has, and while he may not have the overall potential of McGrady, the similarities are quite striking. Both grew after they came into the league, and both are around 6-8 or 6-9, depending on whom you talk to. Both are extremely long, move with a swiftness and smoothness that shocks fans and frightens defenders. Both came in as forwards more comfortable closer to the hoop, and both learned how to create off the dribble while expanding their range well past the three-point arc.

George turned just 23 earlier this month, and has quickly turned himself into one of the fastest rising stars in the league. In last year’s playoff series against Miami, George struggled going up against LeBron and Dwyane Wade. In six games, he averaged 10 points and shot below 37 percent. But when they faced off this year in early January, George lit them up for 29 points and 11 rebounds in a Pacers win. Now he’ll have another crack at them in the Eastern Conference Finals.

Take away George’s play in November, and his progress is even more shocking. In December, he averaged 18.8 points and 7.6 rebounds, and then upped those to 19.4 and 9.1 the following month. By February, George was a 20-point-a-game scorer. Pretty good for a guy who barely averaged 12 last year.

Last season, Paul George was a slight disappointment as a headliner for the dunk contest during All-Star Weekend. But this year, he didn’t need to worry about Saturday night. He tasted Sunday.

2. KYRIE IRVING
During Team USA trial runs before the 2012 Summer Olympics, everyone laughed when Irving challenged Kobe Bryant to a game of one-on-one. Too small. Too young. This was Kobe Bryant he was talking to, the man of 30,000-plus points, 81-point games and the self-proclaimed best mano-a-mano player ever. Bryant wanted to play him. No. 24 should be careful though, because with Irving unleashing new parts of his game every night, it won’t be long before Cleveland’s newest icon bows to no one.

Like Paul George and Tracy McGrady before him, sometimes players come from out of nowhere and turn into studs. But with Irving, the former No. 1 overall pick and NBA Rookie of the Year, we expected it. The Leap wasn’t a question for Cleveland’s best player. It was a necessity. Still, 22.5 points a game is big time, and the 6-3 guard is still barely 21 years old. Uncle Drew kills on the playgrounds, but Irving commits crimes against humanity in NBA arenas.

For a while, some questioned whether Irving deserved to be an All-Star this season. His numbers are obviously good enough – the aforementioned points, plus 5.9 assists and 1.5 steals a night – but Cleveland struggled. At 24-58, they never had a chance of sniffing the playoffs, and the NBA’s midseason classic is a party typically reserved for winners. Yet sometimes, prodigies can’t be denied. And Irving is so talented he even made Russell Westbrook look bad this year.

Irving cooked Westbrook and the Thunder for 13 points in the final three minutes of Cleveland’s upset win in early February, and did it all with defenders leaning all over him. The highlights were absurd. The tape almost felt doctored. Crossovers, spin moves, hesitations, the ball wasn’t just on a string, it was as if Irving spent his entire life prepping for that moment. He was thinking four, no, five steps ahead, and when he drilled a triple from the top of the arc to ice it, Cleveland’s broadcast team nearly hyperventilated. LeBron was official over. Kyrie was in. Westbrook is a bad man, but Irving is quickly evolving into one of the three or four best scorers in the NBA.

Irving’s next step will be learning the intricacies of the point guard spot. Cleveland is not a very good team, and they don’t have much talent. They need someone to make them better, set them up, and put the less-gifted players in position to succeed. Irving’s always been a dominant scorer. Back in high school, he played as much of the two as point guard, and without much hope this season, coach Byron Scott basically rolled the ball out and told him to attack. However, now that he is an All-Star, and will find his name included among the great point guard discussion for the next decade, it isn’t enough to expect big nights from Irving. We’re expecting greatness, and waiting on postseason wins.

1. JAMES HARDEN
If you expected the Rockets to vault into the playoffs with James Harden leading them, if you expected Harden to become one of the five best scorers in the league, if you expected the Beard to have nights like the one he had in early February in Miami where he looked like the best player on the floor, you can take a bow. There aren’t many of you. The trade on the eve of the season that sent James Harden from Oklahoma City to Houston was quite odd. Not for the way it was orchestrated, although that was definitely unique, but for the reaction. Nearly everyone believed it was a stupid move by the Thunder. They broke up a core that made the Finals in 2012. You just don’t do that. Then again, those same people criticized Houston for acquiring Harden and immediately giving him a max contract worth approximately $80 million. Why? No one believed James Harden was a franchise player, not even the stat heads who constantly mused about his per-36 minute production and how he was one of the best scorers in the league last season even though he came off the bench for the Thunder.

Harden put those doubts to rest quickly, going for 37 points and 12 assists in his first game with Houston. Then the very next game, the Beard raised the bar even higher, dropping 45 on only 19 shots against the Hawks. From there, it was one long breakout for the Arizona State product. He averaged 25.9 points a night, good for fifth in the league, and had the Rockets finish at 45-37 and a No. 8 playoff seed.

Since becoming “The Man” in Houston, Harden’s game hasn’t changed much. It’s still centered on balance and rhythm, his patented Euro Step being one of the deadliest moves you’ll ever see. And as the season moved along, his playmaking and efficiency steadily improved. He started to get a handle on drawing the best defender every night and dealing with double-teams and hard hedges off screens. That was all new to him.

What makes Harden so dangerous is his consistency. He’s scored in double-figures in every game but two this season, and had less than 17 points just six times. That’s incredible. Because he draws fouls at an ridiculous clip (a league-leading 10.2 attempts a game), you can book Harden down for free points. That’s like giving Usain Bolt a five-meter head start in a sprint. From there, Harden has the step-back jumper, floaters in the lane, a deadeye catch-n-shoot three-point shot, and a spectacular pick-n-roll game. The defense isn’t there yet – over 100 possessions, the team actually allows 4.2 more points with Harden on the floor, per 82games.com. Harden gambles too often and is often falling into the traps that come with being a superstar (laziness, a penchant for drifting defensively, an excuse to save his energy). But that’s a sickness every major star deals with from time to time.

In one year, Harden went from a NBA Finals scapegoat and Thabo Sefolosha‘s backup to one of the two or three best isolation players in the game, and a legitimate franchise player. He’ll make All-Star Games for the next decade. Even so short as six months ago, no one saw that coming.

Which player made the biggest leap this season?

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