ATLANTA — Nickeil Alexander-Walker was announced Friday as the winner of the NBA’s most improved player honor for the 2025-26 season, with the 27-year-old shooting guard beating out fellow finalists Deni Avdija of the Portland Trail Blazers and Jalen Duren of the Detroit Pistons while becoming the second straight Atlanta Hawks player to win the annual award.
Alexander-Walker secured it with by far the best statistical season of his pro career, which began when he was selected by the New Orleans Pelicans with the No. 17 pick of the 2019 NBA draft after two college seasons at Virginia Tech.
Dyson Daniels, who along with Alexander-Walker and others have helped the sixth-seeded Hawks build a 2-1 lead in their best-of-seven series with the third-seeded New York Knicks in the first round of the Eastern Conference playoffs — Game 4 is Saturday night in Atlanta — won the trophy last season.
“I’m glad I love this game so much. I don’t know where I’d be without it,” said Alexander-Walker, a 6-foot-5, 205-pound Toronto native who spent part of his prep basketball career at Chattanooga’s Hamilton Heights Christian Academy, where his teammates included cousin Shai Gilgeous-Alexander — the Oklahoma City Thunder guard who was last season’s MVP for the regular season as well as the NBA Finals.
“Glad that I had people who believed in me when I didn’t,” Alexander-Walker continued, “and when they say it takes a village, I used every single person in mine.”