Why Neemias Queta Should Be In The Most Improved Player Conversation

I generally try not to complain about the NBA too often because it is a beautiful league and I am fortunate to be able to cover it in the capacity that I do. However, one quibble I do have with it is how we vote on the Most Improved Player Award.

To me, this honor should be reserved for the player who takes a leap that is unexpected, not one who is simply following their natural development curve.

Right now, the three guys on FanDuel with the highest odds to win the award are Jalen Duren (+170), Josh Giddey (+460), and Deni Avdija (+550). All those guys are having great seasons, but how much of it was truly unexpected? If you examine their numbers from the second half of last year, this jump was somewhat predictable.

If one of them does end up coming home with the award, I will be thrilled for them. What I’m not happy about is how Neemias Queta (+20000) is being viewed as a massive long shot.

Why Neemias Queta Should Get Some MIP Consideration

Going back to that idea of taking an unexpected leap, for the first four seasons of Queta’s career, he looked like nothing more than a meddling backup center. However, due to the departures of Kristaps Porzingis, Al Horford, and Luke Kornet, Queta has been thrust into a larger role, to which he’s responded by becoming a legitimate starting-caliber big man.

In his essence, Queta is your prototypical rim-running, rim-protecting five. Queta is tied for tenth in total dunks (30), and he’s in the 94th percentile in the league in block rate (5.7%). Opponents are also shooting 10.6% worse than expected on shots within six feet when they are contested by Queta (per NBA.com).

But like we talked about Duren, Queta does things that allow him to transcend the parameters of his archetype. For instance, Queta has become adept at mapping the floor and making quick decisions. The Boston Celtics tout a ton of pull-up shooting threats (second in pull-up threes per game). As a result, their ball handlers often face aggressive pick-and-roll coverages that require two defenders to occupy them momentarily. This creates what are known as “short roll” opportunities for Queta. He hasn’t reached Draymond Green levels (yet), but Queta is hitting the open man in these situations more times than not.

Queta’s assist percentage right now would be a career best (10%). That’s a higher mark than other professional rim-runners like Jarrett Allen, Rudy Gobert, and Mitchell Robinson.

Queta is, for lack of a better word, buff-er than most lob finishers. Not only does this make him a more emphatic play-finisher, but it also makes him a more difficult assignment to box out. This gives the Celtics an offensive rebounding (Queta is in the 94th percentile in offensive rebounding percentage) threat that they never really had with guys like Porzingis and Horford. His increase in minutes played is a big reason why Boston has gone from 15th in ORB% in 2024-25 to 8th in 2025-26.

I’m sure that, to the casual observer, none of what I’m saying here sounds super glamorous, but it clearly has an impact on winning. The Celtics are 26.1 points per 100 possessions better with Queta on the floor than when he is on the bench (per Cleaning the Glass). That is the single best on/off footprint of any player in the association who has played at least 200 minutes. Some of this is due to Boston not having a great backup center option behind Queta, but a lot of this is because of all the little things he does so well.

A great way to measure how much a player has improved in a single season is by using The Analyst’s DELTA metric. DELTA is a metric that measures the change in a player’s DRIP score (their in-house one-number metric) from the start of the season to the present day. Anyway, Queta currently has the highest DELTA (+2.2) of any player in the league, regardless of how many minutes they have played.

Realistically, Queta will not win the MIP award. Historically, the player who receives this trophy sees a significant jump in their PPG, and Queta has only seen a 4.3 point increase in this category. But Queta has taken a major leap, and he deserves at least some consideration in this discussion.

*Queta left Boston’s Sunday victory over the Orlando Magic with an apparent ankle injury. He did not come back to the game, but given the fact that he was listed as “questionable” to return, it is unlikely that he misses a significant amount of time.