Bulls guard Coby White finishes second in Most Improved Player voting

Charles Rex Arbogast/AP

Arturas Karnisovas didn’t have a vote.

If the Bulls executive vice president of basketball operations did, it would be a no-brainer in regards to the NBA’s 2024 Most Improved Player Award.

“He’s made huge strides,” Karnisovas said of guard Coby White on Saturday. “For me, he’s most improved player this year.”

The voters said differently.

Prior to Tuesday night’s NBA playoff games, the league announced that Philadelphia guard Tyrese Maxey was voted the Most Improved Player of the Year, beating out second-place White and Houston big man Alperen Sengun.

While White’s numbers took a bigger jump from last season to this season’s campaign, where Maxey pulled away was on the national spotlight. Not only did Maxey become an Eastern Conference All-Star, but he kept the 76ers afloat for a playoff spot while former league MVP Joel Embiid was sidelined with injuries.

Maxey went from 20.3 points per game in the 2022-23 season to 25.9 while also improving his assists from 3.5 to 6.2 per game.

White was coming off a career-low 9.7 points per game last season, but that jumped up big time as his role greatly increased, finishing this season behind only DeMar DeRozan’s 24 points per game and Zach LaVine’s 19.5 (in only 25 games) with 19.1 per game.

As for Sengun, he made a jump in both scoring and rebounding, leading the up-and-coming Rockets in both categories.

NOTE: According to Bulls PR, several coaching changes were made to the staff on Tuesday, as assistant Chris Fleming, who was one of the few holdovers from the Jim Boylen era, will not return and Maurice Cheeks will move from his full-time bench role to another position in the organization.

Josh Longstaff and John Bryant were expected to be promoted with the change.