Atlanta Hawks: Team Awards at Quarter-Season Mark
By Chris Guest
Most Improved Player: DeAndre’ Bembry
Did you like that segue? Who am I kidding, I know you did.
Anyways, third-year wing DeAndre’ Bembry has finally been able to stay healthy and stay on the court for the Atlanta Hawks, and it’s paying dividends for the 24-year-old – as he definitely deserves the mantle of Most Improved Player for the Atlanta Hawks this year.
Through 22 games played, Bembry already has career-high totals in the following categories: points (182), rebounds (104), assists (52), steals (29), blocks (16), field goals made (68) and attempted (172) and three-pointers made (17) and attempted (54).
Clearly, Bembry is making the most of his playing time for the Atlanta Hawks, and the team is giving him a lot of leeway as the team’s lead ballhandler at times. It must be noted that Bembry’s ability to get to the rim is almost unparalleled among wings, as 51 percent of his shots have come around the rim – good enough for the 95th percentile according to Cleaning the Glass.
Sadly, he is only finishing those shots with a make 54 percent of the time, which is in the 36th percentile according to CTG, but at least he’s getting there!
Where Bembry really shines is on defense and his DRPM numbers put him in the top half of all small forwards in that metric at .15 (at least it’s positive). His 0.5 defensive win shares are tied with Baze for tops among the Atlanta Hawks, and his 1.3 steals per game are second only to Baze, his 0.7 blocks per game are tied for third, his steal percentage of 2.6 is 0.1 lower than Baze’s and he actually leads the Atlanta Hawks in defensive box plus/minus, according to Basketball Reference.
With Taurean Prince scuffling, Bembry has really come into his own for the Hawks in his third year.