Take the Atlanta Hawks’ Nickeil Alexander-Walker, for example. Former teammates and coaches say he blossomed with the Minnesota Timberwolves partly because he accepted his role as a secondary weapon rather than trying to be a high-usage scorer, something he struggled to do well when he came into the league in New Orleans.
That part is totally true, but I’m not sure Alexander-Walker ever accepted that was his ceiling. In his first year as a Hawk, he’s showing why.
The player who averaged 9.4 points per game with Minnesota in his sixth pro season has shockingly more than doubled that in Year 7. Yes, Alexander-Walker averaged 20.1 points per game in the first half of the season to help the Hawks offset the absence of Trae Young for all but 10 games, and he threw in stellar defense on top of it, quickly establishing himself as a Most Improved Player candidate.
But then March came around … and Alexander-Walker really took off.
Atlanta has won 18 of its last 22 games, including a 15-2 mark in March that won teammate Jalen Johnson Eastern Conference Player of the Month honors. But the real story in Atlanta is the heater Alexander-Walker has been on over the last five weeks. Yes, the Hawks have taken advantage of a soft stretch of schedule, but can we talk about the fact that this dude hasn’t missed a shot in over a month?
I’m only slightly exaggerating. In 18 games since March 4, Alexander-Walker is averaging 24.4 points per game with a 72.3(!) true shooting percentage. The leaderboard in this category is a bunch of centers who only shoot dunks and Alexander-Walker, who is bombing contested pull-up jumpers as the Hawks’ second option behind Johnson and knocking down everything.
In that stretch, more than half of his shots have come beyond the arc, where he’s made 49.0 percent of them, while also shooting 60.6 percent on 2s. It hasn’t just been the Wizards and Nets of the world that felt his wrath: He dropped a career-high 41 points in a crucial win over the Orlando Magic and hung 36 on the New York Knicks in a tough loss Monday.
These aren’t catch-and-shoot fungoes he’s hitting, either. Alexander-Walker has done a lot of his work on the ball and off the dribble, using his size and high release to cook defenders even when he hasn’t cleanly beat them. He’s taken eight 3-pointers a game in this stretch, mostly from above the break.
Quietly, he’s also become a money foul shooter. Alexander-Walker shot 78 percent from the line in Minnesota a year ago; this year, he’s at 90.2 percent for the Hawks and 94.6 percent in his torrid stretch since March 4. In other words, the player who might have been the league’s Most Improved Player through the end of February is also arguably the league’s most improved in-season player since the start of March.
Signed for the midlevel exception to be a third guard, he’s instead had an epic breakout. If there were a Free Agent Signing of the Year award, he’d claim that prize. (Atlanta has him on the books for just $29.6 million over the next two years before his 2028 player option.)
That also makes Alexander-Walker the captain of my Post-All-Star Breakout Team. Here are 10 others who haven’t received enough shine for how they’ve played in the stretch run. (Stats and records are entering Thursday’s games.)
Darius Garland, Clippers
It’s usually hard for high-usage players to adjust to a new team right away; even the best normally see their numbers take a hit, especially when they change teams midseason.
Not Darius Garland. All of his stats are massively better with the Clippers than they were in his 25 games with Cleveland, virtually mirroring the All-Star numbers he put up in 2024-25. Obviously, Garland’s full recovery from a toe injury has been a huge part of the story, but he’s still outkicked his coverage even relative to previous seasons. In 17 games with the Clippers, Garland is shooting 45.8 percent from 3 on career-high volume, dropping 41.8 percent of his 2s and averaging more than two assists for every turnover.
Garland’s 62.3 true shooting percentage as a Clipper would be a career high, and he’s doing so on career-best usage (30.3). All of this is hugely encouraging for a Clippers team that made an old-for-young swap (James Harden for Garland) in the hopes that Garland could replicate The Beard’s prolific production. So far, the Clippers are winning the bet.
Gui Santos, Warriors
Golden State’s midseason contract extension for Gui Santos is already looking like a screaming bargain (three years, $15 million, with a 2028 player option). That came with a bit of extra trade maneuverability from Golden State’s side. (Santos’ extension puts an extra $4.5 million in tradable salary on the Warriors’ books, which in turn assures they have enough outbound salary to execute a potential Giannis Antetokounmpo trade without waiting on any other players to make decisions on player options or sign-and-trades. While Santos can’t be traded until Aug. 28, a deal could be agreed to long before then.) But the primary motivation was Santos’ seamless fit in the Warriors’ cutting, moving offense.
In his third pro season, Santos has added enough skill and sanded down the rough edges to the point where he’s moved beyond “scrappy hustler” to “key rotation piece.” He’s become a much more aggressive offensive player and gets most of his shots at the rim, which is why he’s shooting 65.3 percent inside the arc; Santos is also one of the best passers at his position (5.4 dimes per 100 possessions) and a respectable shooting threat.
Since the All-Star break, Santos has started 20 of the Warriors’ 22 games and averaged 16.4 points, 5.8 boards and 3.9 assists, and his efficiency (60.8 true shooting percentage) hasn’t suffered. That makes Santos yet another hit on a late Warriors draft pick (he was selected 55th in 2022), and on a team waging annual battles against the tax-apron dragons, his locked-in salary looks like a major plus.
LaMelo Ball, Hornets
Stop the presses: LaMelo Ball has played 70 games this season! That alone would be a story after he averaged just 35 a year over the previous three seasons.
But he’s also gained steam as the year has worn on. Following a sluggish start and early-season trade rumors, Ball has keyed the Hornets’ shocking surge into the postseason. He leads the NBA in offensive rating since the break, with the Hornets scoring a torrid 127.9 points per 100 when he plays. This is more notable because the Hornets’ offense stagnates without him, and that’s been the case all season; Charlotte scores just 110.4 points per 100 in the non-Ball minutes.
The eye test also looks kindly on Ball; his formerly sluggish defensive habits have improved noticeably. He’s also shown more craft as a short-range finisher than we’ve seen in previous seasons, especially with decel steps.
I haven’t heard him get a lot of shine for end-of-season honors, but Ball has played enough games to be eligible (!) and should be a candidate for Third-Team All-NBA.
Saddiq Bey has bounced back nicely from his torn ACL. (Darren Yamashita / Imagn Images)
Saddiq Bey, Pelicans
Welp, the “Jordan Poole” part of the Jordan Poole trade hasn’t worked out so well … but the Saddiq Bey piece could hardly have gone better.
After missing all of last season with a torn ACL, Bey has quietly been a revelation in New Orleans after the Wizards sent him and Poole there in the offseason for CJ McCollum. If the league still had a Comeback Player of the Year award, Bey would be a shoo-in. The 6-foot-8 forward has played 72 games and started 64 of them, and what was already an impressive resurgence has gone to another level since the All-Star break.
Post-break, Bey is averaging 20.0 points per game and shooting 40.0 percent from 3, while dialing his usage rate way past his previous career highs. He hung 42 on the remnants of Utah’s roster and has eleven straight games with at least 15 points.
For the season, Bey’s 17.2 PER and 57.9 true shooting percentage mash his former bests, recharging a career that has seemed stalled out even before the injury. Best of all, for a Pels team that has major cap and tax issues, Bey is a solid starter on the books for just $6.4 million next season … a figure that almost offsets the $34 million in dead money on Poole.
Precious Achiuwa, Kings
In honor of Canada’s finest songstress, isn’t it ironic that the exclamation point on Precious Achiuwa’s career resurrection came in his 28-point, 19-rebound eruption at Toronto that may have fatally wounded Toronto’s hopes of getting the East’s fifth seed?
The former Raptor, who wasn’t even on a roster at the start of the season, ended up in Sacramento after the Kings realized they forgot to sign any power forwards in the offseason. And as the Kings’ season went off the rails, Achiuwa’s career got back on track.
For those of you who haven’t been watching a lot of Kings games the past several weeks, Achiuwa is averaging 15.7 points and 9.3 rebounds on 59.6 percent true shooting since the All-Star break. No, seriously. In that time, the Kings have been shockingly competent when Achiuwa plays (just a minus-3.0 net rating) and mercilessly thrashed when he sits (minus-19.1).
Suffice it to say that I don’t think Achiuwa will be unsigned on opening day of 2026-27. Because Sacramento signed him to a one-year deal with no options for next season (but still allowed him to do irreparable harm to its draft position by staying in the lineup), Achiuwa will be an unrestricted free agent who, at 26 years old, should get a lot of attention.
Matisse Thybulle, Trail Blazers
You may have missed this because Matisse Thybulle missed all but four games in the first half of the season, but he’s been back for 24 games and doing his post-impressionist sleight-of-hand tricks as well as ever.
Thybulle has posted an unbelievable, incomprehensible 5.9 percent steal rate in his 454 minutes, which would nearly double that of the league leader in this category, Detroit’s Ausar Thompson. Meanwhile, despite playing on the wing, Thybulle also has a 2.7 percent block rate that would rank in the league’s top 30 if he had enough minutes. Between the two categories, Thybulle remains the NBA’s “stocks” gawd; his combined 7.6 percent rate is the best of any non-center and nearly matches his career-best from his second season in Philadelphia.
To underscore this, consider that Thybulle is only averaging 16.2 minutes per game, yet has still recorded at least one steal in 25 of his 28 appearances. And he’s not just padding his steals rate on reckless gambles, either. The Blazers sport a microscopic 99.5 defensive rating in his minutes, compared to 115.0 when he’s off the floor.
File this away if the Blazers manage to squeeze into the playoffs. Thybulle remains as disruptive a defender as any player in the sport, and he’s entering his free-agent year.
Jaylin Williams, Thunder
The last thing the league needs is another Oklahoma City developmental success story. Welp, I’m afraid I have some bad news.
On Feb. 25, I went to Detroit and watched a Thunder roster that was resting most of its stars take on the Pistons; the Thunder lost, but I was stunned to see Jaylin Williams finish with 30 points and 11 rebounds. Sure, that was an outlier, but it was less “out” than you might think. He scored 29 in a key win over the Denver Nuggets and put up a 17-6-6 line on the Chicago Bulls.
Since the All-Star break, especially, Williams has been launching 3s with confidence, operating slick dribble-handoffs with his guards and taking charges with his usual aplomb. (Williams has drawn 17 charges in just 1,277 minutes this season, according to pbpstats.com, which is the highest rate in the league.)
Williams’ top five scoring games and top seven rebounding games have all come since the beginning of February. Some of that is due to minutes and opportunity, but he’s also been way more efficient: Since the All-Star break, he has a true shooting percentage of 70.7. This isn’t just a tiny smattering of attempts, either: He’s a scorching 62-of-129 (48.1 percent) from 3 since Feb. 1.
Williams has long been regarded as a high-character leader who has unusual juice in the locker room for a young, third-string center. But now he’s something teams like even more: a character guy who can play. Williams’ three-year, $24 million extension that kicked in this season looks like another smart move by the Thunder.
Paul Reed gives Detroit a better option than many as a third center. (Mike Watters / Imagn Images)
Paul Reed, Pistons
Like I wasn’t going to mention this.
Do you realize how good B-ball Paul has been in the second half of the season? He’s shooting 61 percent since the All-Star break, averaging a “stock” every 7.5 minutes and scoring at a high enough rate that he’s been able to hit double figures in fewer than 20 minutes nine times since Feb. 1.
For the year, Reed would rank seventh in the NBA in PER if he had enough minutes to qualify. By BPM, he’d still be 11th. It’s not like he’s padding the numbers against other teams’ backups either. In 10 games as a starter, he has a plus-10-per-100 net rating and a Thybulle-esque 37 “stocks.”
Theoretically Detroit’s third center, Reed is better than 90 percent of the league’s backups and a fair number of the starters and is signed for the mere sum of $5.6 million for next season. Isaiah Stewart’s return may see him consigned to a limited role in the postseason, but if he’s called into service, keep an eye on Reed making a big impact.
Ty Jerome, Grizzlies
Wahoowa! Between injuries and, um, “injuries” (tank you very much), it’s been a brief season for Ty Jerome. But when he played, he was a revelation, showcasing all the skill that made him such a tough cover in Cleveland despite his not-exactly-daunting footspeed.
Jerome only played 15 games, but he averaged nearly a point a minute when he played. Yes, a point a minute: He played 22.6 minutes per game and scored 19.7 a game, devastating opponents both with his funky floater game inside the arc and his 42 percent 3-point shooting from beyond. Did I mention he also averaged more than three assists for every turnover?
Between all that, Jerome’s 25.7 PER for his small season sample is in superstar territory. Obviously, we can’t quite expect that for a full season, but if he’s healthy next year, Jerome can make a massive impact in Memphis (or elsewhere).
