5 NBA Players Making a Leap This Season
We're about a quarter of the way through the 2024-25 NBA season, which is enough time for offseason optimists to realize not every young player is guaranteed to improve.
Let's temper that disappointment by focusing on the guys who have.
Leaps take different forms. Some involve the legitimate salvaging of a career. Others, which tend to get more attention, involve jumps from "solid starter" to "star." Beyond that, already established high-end contributors can even climb into the All-NBA ranks.
Here, we'll cover a handful of ascending players, each of whom has either added a critical skill, shored up a major weakness or simply raised his overall level of play to new heights.
Bilal Coulibaly, Washington Wizards
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If you watched the Washington Wizards last year, first of all, thank you for your sacrifice. And second, you probably saw some indicators that then-rookie Bilal Coulibaly might be special.
Now in his second season, the rangy, do-it-all wing is validating those signs.
Coulibaly is now a full-time starter averaging 12.6 points, 5.4 rebounds and 2.8 assists per game with a 57.4 true shooting percentage—even after a rough shooting slump to close out November. Those are figures matched by 20 other players who've logged as many minutes as he has this season, many of which have made multiple All-Star teams. Beyond the numbers, Coulibaly's usage patterns have also changed dramatically.
The Wizards are trusting him to make decisions more frequently. He's up to 2.5 minutes of touch time per game, well beyond the 1.2 minutes he averaged as a rookie.
He's also more than doubled last year's 3.7 drives per game and is shooting 48.2 percent on them, up from 41.7 percent in 2023-24. Coulibaly is seeing more reps as a pick-and-roll ball-handler, ranking in the 44th percentile in points generated per play, a whole lot better than last year's 11th-percentile ranking.
The only thing more exciting than the leap Coulibaly is making is that, at 20, he's probably got another two or three in him.
Jaden Ivey, Detroit Pistons
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Jaden Ivey was in consideration for this list before his game-winning buzzer-beater against the Toronto Raptors, but that running floater left us flat-out obligated to alert the world to his growth.
Last year's confounding role under head coach Monty Williams is no more, and Ivey is now alternately running the show when Cade Cunningham is off the floor or complementing the Detroit Pistons' cornerstone when they're out there together. Given Cunningham's higher spot in the pecking order, Ivey's improvement as an off-ball weapon has been critical.
Ivey's 44.3 percent hit rate on catch-and-shoot threes is well clear of his previous career high of 37.4 percent set during his rookie season, and he's been a devastatingly effective cutter, scoring at rates that rank in the 95th percentile.
Career-best marks of 18.4 points, 4.3 rebounds and a 55.7 true shooting percentage are all encouraging, even if it remains to be seen whether he can hold down an alpha offensive role. That's not what the Pistons need from him, though, and Ivey's gains as a second option next to Cunningham are more important than anything else. Detroit is building a core, and it's now easier than ever to see how Ivey fits into it.
Jalen Williams, Oklahoma City Thunder
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Jalen Williams still isn't the Oklahoma City Thunder's best player, but the gap between him and frequent MVP short-lister Shai Gilgeous-Alexander is narrower than ever.
Over a four-game stretch from Nov. 17 to Nov. 25, J-Dub scored at least 25 points, made at least half his shots and handed out at least five assists. That may not sound like much, but SGA never did that at age 23 or younger, and only a handful of the game's all-time greats ever did.
Overall, Williams is averaging 21.5 points, 6.3 rebounds, 5.2 assists, 2.1 steals and 1.0 block per game while posting a true shooting percentage of 59.4. Those figures put him in a class of one this season.
Michael Jordan is the only other player in NBA history to post those numbers over a full year. He did it just once, in 1990-91.
That's not to say Williams is on track for GOAT status, but it certainly illustrates his fitness for an All-NBA spot, along with fringe MVP consideration. Any criticism that he's not his own team's No. 1 option fails to account for the value his flaw-free game and unmatched versatility provides.
He might be the only guy in the league who can capably run a team as a point guard, defend top opposing wings and moonlight for several weeks as an effective small-ball center.
Franz Wagner, Orlando Magic
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Paolo Banchero's injury didn't just mean Franz Wagner would have to play more. It meant he'd have to play differently. The Orlando Magic were already short on shot creation before Banchero went down with a torn oblique, and his absence foisted an immense scoring and playmaking burden on Wagner.
He's carried it as if it weighs nothing.
Wagner is seeing about 25 percent more total touch time per game, an enormous increase, while giving nothing back in efficiency. Despite roughly double the defensive attention he used to get, the multifaceted forward is setting career highs in points (23.4), assists (5.9) and rebounds (5.7) per game while playing almost exactly as many minutes per game as he did a year ago.
His assist rate has spiked from 18.8 percent last year to 33.5 percent in 2024-25, while his turnover rate is a career-low 9.9 percent. Wagner is generating more unassisted three-point shots for himself than ever, which are typically lower-percentage looks, but he's canning 33.8 percent of his treys, up from last year's 28.1 percent.
Wagner has gone from being a solid second option to a capable first, one of the toughest moves to make in the NBA.
Ochai Agbaji, Toronto Raptors
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It's time for a deep cut.
Even among Ochai Agbaji's Toronto Raptors teammates, his growth is getting too little press. Gradey Dick is showcasing a more complete offensive game as a sophomore, and RJ Barrett is suddenly one of the best facilitating wings in the league, but the argument here is that Agbaji's leap may have saved his career.
Any time a player is traded in the second season of his rookie deal and isn't viewed as a centerpiece of the transaction, it's bad news. That's where Agbaji found himself last year, when the Utah Jazz sent him to Toronto with Kelly Olynyk for a package that included a 2024 first-rounder. At the time, Agbaji, picked 14th in 2022, was shooting just 29.4 percent from deep and posting some of the worst catch-all metrics in the entire league.
This year, he's a critical piece of Toronto's operation on both ends. The 6'5" guard is shouldering major responsibilities on D, as evidenced by his matchup data. His top five covers by minutes defended are LeBron James, Jayson Tatum, Tyler Herro, Norman Powell and Giannis Antetokounmpo.
Defense was always Agbaji's calling card, so his work on that end is less surprising than his 47.1 percent shooting from deep. The 24-year-old is particularly deadly from the corners, where he's hitting 54.0 percent of his attempts.
Now a regular starter in a dead heat with Barrett for the Raptors lead in Estimated Wins Added, Agbaji has gone from potentially slipping out of the league to setting himself up for a lucrative extension in the summer of 2025.
Stats courtesy of NBA.com, Basketball Reference and Cleaning the Glass. Accurate through Dec. 2. Salary info via Spotrac.
Grant Hughes covers the NBA for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter (@gt_hughes), and subscribe to the Hardwood Knocks podcast, where he appears with Bleacher Report's Dan Favale.
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