NBA March Madness: Which late-season surges from five intriguing players are likely to carry into next season?

Jalen Green averaged more points per game in March of 2024 than Nikola Jokić. In March of 2023, Mikal Bridges averaged nearly 29 points per game on just a shade worse than 50-43-91 shooting. Shake Milton was good enough in March of 2020 to knock Al Horford out of Philadelphia’s starting lineup in the bubble. The message here is relatively straightforward: Weird things happen in the NBA in March.

They are weird for understandable reasons. The schedule in particular gets wonky. Bad teams are often tanking while great ones are often resting, so the right sample of opponents can propel unusual players. Teams might also have a rare sense of clarity. If it is already out of the playoff picture, for instance, it might hand the reins of the offense over to someone who’d never otherwise held them. Injuries can force these changes.

And sometimes? Players just get better. Take Giannis Antetokounmpo. From October, 2015 through February, 2016, Antetokounmpo averaged only 3.2 assists per game. But as that season progressed, head coach Jason Kidd noticed his development and decided to put more and more of the offense in his hands. In March he experienced a bit of a scoring jump, but more importantly, he started averaging 7.2 assists per game. Empowered as a ball-handler, Antetokounmpo won Most Improved Player in 2017 and MVP in 2019. Sometimes, these March breakouts are truly a sign of things to come.

And right now, we’re nearing the end of what has become the NBA‘s version of March Madness. There are out-of-nowhere explosions left and right this March, so let’s dig through them and try to figure out what’s real and what’s more traditional March weirdness.

White, averaging a tidy 29.1 points per game, is outscoring Antetokounmpo, Jayson Tatum, Kevin Durant, Anthony Edwards and Cade Cunningham in March. Giddey is at a more modest 20.9 points per contest, except he’s also flirting with a triple-double at 9.8 rebounds and 8.9 assists per night. Both are having the best months of their careers, and it’s translating to team success.

The Bulls are 9-3 in their last 12, but perhaps more importantly, their success on offense can be distinguished from the uptempo pace that has defined their season. The Bulls rank third in the NBA in pace, but according to Cleaning the Glass, the Bulls rank seventh in half-court points per play this month as well. They aren’t just accumulating stats through volume. They’re running good offense.

It starts and ends with Giddey and White, who are playing far more aggressively in March. Through February, the pair combined to average just 5.7 free-throw attempts per game. They’re both topping that figure individually now, and White in particular has become a downhill demon. He’s taking 9.8 shots in the paint per game in March. For reference, LeBron James is at 9.6 for the whole season. His six shots per game in the restricted area top Shai Gilgeous-Alexander‘s full-season mark of 5.7. 

Giddey is getting to the basket nearly as much, but more importantly, he’s actually making his 3s. He’s up to 41.7% on catch-and-shoot 3s in March on respectable volume, but notably, he’s been hitting those catch-and-shoot looks all season. Those are the ones that will determine whether or not he’s playable in a postseason setting. Oklahoma City traded him in part because Dallas just didn’t guard him when he was off of the ball. Giddey barely sniffs pull-up attempts, the more typical indicator of stardom, but hitting this critical step as a supporting piece means quite a bit for his future. He’ll need to start making those shots at a higher volume over a longer period to get guarded consistently, but this is a start.

Here’s where we start to rain on Chicago’s parade a bit: the schedule has been pitiful, at least when it comes to defense. The Bulls have played three top-10 defenses in March: the Magic without Jalen Suggs, the Cavaliers without Evan Mobley and the Rockets without Amen Thompson. One month against mostly bad defenses hardly seems like a fair sample here.

Still, their joint ascension makes sense on paper. The entire theory of trading for Giddey from OKC was that he’d thrive in an environment with more available touches. Coby White is largely an on-ball player as well. Both of them saw their usage artificially deflated by the presence of Zach LaVine. When the Bulls traded him in February, they allowed both to control the ball a good deal more. They’ve soared. Now, on any team with ambitions greater than Chicago’s, they’d almost certainly be playing with LaVine-caliber ball-handlers, so we can’t assume that Chicago has built a championship-caliber backcourt or anything, but both Giddey and White have taken advantage of the opportunity LaVine’s absence has created to prove what they are capable of themselves.

The 76ers have played in two critical tank-offs in the past week, one against the Pelicans and another against the Raptors. Grimes has missed both with the “rest” designation. Before he arrived in Philadelphia, he was averaging 22.8 minutes per game. To put it delicately… bench players don’t need rest nights. That is a star designation. And, well, Grimes has looked the part of one in March.

Grimes was a full-on, no-questions-asked role player before he got to Philadelphia. He emerged as a starter with the Knicks during the 2022-23 season, but nearly 90% of his field goals were assisted. He was, largely, relegated to standing in the corner and waiting for someone else to create 3s. But as a member of the star-less and tanking 76ers, more than half of his shots have been unassisted. He’s creating his own looks and doing it quite well. Are some of the numbers a bit unsustainable? Absolutely. He’s shooting almost 69% in the restricted area. That’s an MVP figure for a guard.

But the idea that he’s just going to be a role player again once the 76ers are healthy, as Georges Niang apparently told him, seems farfetched at this point. He has more 30-point games in Philadelphia than Paul George does. The truth here is somewhere in between. He’s not just going to sit in the corner anymore. He’s also not going to average 26.6 points per game when Joel Embiid and Tyrese Maxey are hoarding possessions.

The middle ground here is fine. You can make a good living making wide-open 3s that star teammates create but also attacking overzealous closeouts and punishing mismatches. Besides, trimming Embiid’s usage doesn’t seem like the worst idea at this point. It might make sense for Philadelphia to embrace what Grimes is becoming as a reason to limit Embiid’s minutes and keep him fresh for postseasons. Even if he isn’t scoring 25 every night, any worthwhile coach is going to see what Grimes has done over the past month and try to incorporate more on-ball opportunities for him next season. To do anything less would be wasteful. He may not be the superstar that rest designation suggests, but he’s a far more versatile offensive player than the Mavericks, Pistons or Knicks gave him credit for.

What Quentin Grimes’ breakout means for the 76ers and everyone else, plus if this is another Mavericks failure

The good news for Avdija? This isn’t his first late-season surge. Last February, he averaged roughly 23 points, nine rebounds and three assists across an impressive seven-game stretch in February. Then he got hurt and wasn’t the same for the rest of the season. After that he was traded to Portland and has spent most of this season adjusting to his new surroundings. Now here we are again. Avdija is averaging roughly 23 points, 10 rebounds and five assists in March.

There’s one key difference that suggests that this isn’t going to last: his shooting. Avdija was a bad 3-point shooter for the first three years of his career. He leapt to decent last season and that mostly held this season. But in his last nine games, he’s hit 51.6% of his 3s on over seven attempts per game. There is just no reason whatsoever to believe that is going to last, because if it did, well, he’d be the best shooter in the NBA.

That doesn’t mean this stretch is entirely meaningless. It’s encouraging that Avdija can play this well while shooting relatively poorly at the rim, for example, and that stretch in Washington hints that he’s been itching for a breakout of some sort. It’s just that he was never meant to break out as, say, a 25-point scorer. No, where he probably settles in is somewhere between 18 to 20 points per game. We can safely call him a good shooter. He is a better finisher than he’s been lately. Pair those scoring traits with excellent positional rebounding, strong defense and good playmaking instincts and you have a pretty unique wing. He’s a true do-it-all player at this point, one hidden on a Portland team that is still a year or two away from winning at a high level.

That’s an exceedingly valuable player in an NBA obsessed with wings and versatility, and his value is only magnified by the absurdly cheap four-year, $55 million extension he inked with Washington before he got traded. It’s just not star scorer that some of Avdija’s recent box scores suggest he’s turning into.

We have a version of this conversation every year. When Reaves was a rookie, it quickly became evident that the team played better when the undrafted rookie was out there. Hey, maybe the front office had found a bench piece. A year later, as the Russell Westbrook situation spiraled out of control, Reaves became a stabilizing force off of the bench and eventually the secondary ball-handler to James. Wow, maybe the Lakers have found a long-term starter. In Year No. 3, it was his playmaking that surprised fans. By the end of the season, it looked as if they may have found not just a starter, but a long-term point guard.

It’s now the fourth spring of Reaves’ career, and once again, we’re frantically moving to raise his ceiling before he crashes through it. Since James got hurt against Boston, Reaves is averaging 26.5 points and 6.5 assists per game. All season, he’s thrived when the ball is in his hands. Laker lineups featuring Reaves but neither James nor Luka Dončić rate in the 88th percentile in terms of offensive efficiency, per Cleaning the Glass. It’s time to start asking if the Lakers have a bonafide All-Star on their hands here.

They’ve certainly treated him like one. He’s been held out of just about every major trade negotiation they’ve held since his arrival. When JJ Redick needed to spark his team ahead of a critical game against Memphis Saturday, he set up a meeting not just with James and Dončić, but Reaves as well. You’re never quite equals with players of that caliber, but the Lakers treat Reaves as at least a peer to their two icons. When James inevitably retires in the next few years, it’s becoming increasingly likely that the Lakers keep Reaves as Dončić’s sidekick rather than take their usual path of flipping him for the next co-star.

Reaves certainly benefits from the presence of those famous teammates. His assisted field goal rate, unlike Grimes’, is actually down in Year No. 4 as he’s adjusted to Dončić’s presence. His success on catch-and-shoot looks has made the fit quite snug, but if he’s going to grow into a viable Dončić co-star, he needs to pair those assisted 3s with the pull-up looks Dončić makes so regularly. He only just started taking them last year, and they’ve mostly been off of the mark all season and especially during his March glow up, in which he’s shooting below 28% on them. But given the consistency with which he has improved thus far in his career, it’s not hard to imagine him figuring those out in the next year or two.

That’s the last step for him, and it’s a necessary one to maximize what he can do as a driver. He needs to pull defenders as far out as possible to compensate for his limitations as an athlete. As great as he is at creating space by moving horizontally and punishing overzealous defenders as a foul-hunter, he’ll never have an elite first step, so those pull-up 3s are going to be a necessary tool. Once he gets there, though, you’re looking at one of the craftiest finishers in the league with deadly passing vision and impeccable instincts. For the foreseeable future, he’ll get to punish whatever lesser defenders opponents throw at him after they’ve game-planned around James and Dončić. What March is showing us, though, is that he’s plenty good on his own. He’s passed every test the Lakers have given him for four years, so it shouldn’t be a surprise that he’s aced the last month with flying colors.