At least one NBA writer who has a vote for these end of seasons awards thinks that Marcin Gortat deserved some respect on the Most Improved Player ballot. Even this writer, however, gave his first place vote to the overwhelming winner, Kevin Love (94 votes) and his second place vote to the eventual second place winner, LaMarcus Aldridge (55 votes). This writer, Arizona's own Paul Coro, did give Gortat his third place vote.
↵Shockingly, Coro's vote for Gortat was the only one he received despite the numbers that show marked improvement which Paul laid out in the Republic:
↵↵↵For the first three years of his career, Gortat averaged 3.7 points and 4.3 rebounds.
↵This season, he averaged 10.2 points and 7.9 rebounds, including averages of 13.0 points and 9.3 rebounds in 55 games with the Suns.
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Looking at the improvement Love made, however, it's not clear exactly why he got 94 votes.
↵Using the PER advanced stat as best all around measure possible, Love improved from an already very good 20.7 to a extremely good 24.3. It's a nice jump for sure, and there's no questioning Love's ability as a player.
↵But Gortat saw his PER increase from 13.9 last season with Orlando to a much better 17.8 for the season and 18.8 as a Sun. That's an increase of 3.9 improvement last year to this compared to a jump of just 3.6 for Love.
↵Obviously, this is just another case of Minnesota media bias on the part of the votes.
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