5 NBA Players Making the Biggest Leaps This Season
We're over three quarters of the way through the 2024-25 NBA season, which is more than enough time to separate November bursts that fizzle from truly sustainable growth.
Leaps can take many different forms. Some players improve enough to secure regular playing time, or even save their careers from slipping away. The ones that tend to get more attention involve jumps from solid-starter status to "star." Go a notch higher, and you see established stars climbing into the elite tier of individual talent—sometimes even surging into the All-NBA ranks.
Here, we'll cover a handful of players who've moved into new territory by adding a critical skill, shoring up a major weakness or simply raising their overall level of play to new heights.
Cade Cunningham, Detroit Pistons
1 of 5
What's New
In a word: superstardom.
Cade Cunningham is on track to skip a step in the traditional development arc. After three seasons without an All-Star berth, he earned that honor this past February but is also an increasingly good bet to land on an All-NBA team. Players don't usually climb both of those rungs at once.
On pace to become just the seventh player ever to average at least 25.0 points, 9.0 assists and 6.0 rebounds per game, Cunningham is driving the Detroit Pistons' offense while playing his most efficient ball ever. His 51.2 effective field-goal percentage is the best of his career, an impressive feat given his 32.5 usage rate is also a personal high.
Why It Matters
Detroit now knows it can foist the offensive alpha role on Cunningham, and that success will follow as long as sufficient shooting and defense surrounds him. The Pistons now have a cornerstone upon which they can build their future.
Nothing is harder in the roster-building process than finding someone who can do what Cunningham is doing right now. While the Pistons have hoped Cunningham could fill that role since they picked him first in 2021, his work this season officially minted him as a foundational piece.
Evan Mobley, Cleveland Cavaliers
2 of 5
What's New
Evan Mobley finished third in Defensive Player of the Year voting in 2022-23 and has been elite on that end from the moment he entered the league.
His offensive dominance is new.
A 36.5 percent hit rate from deep on more than double the volume might stand out most, but Mobley's downhill attacking has completely changed his offensive profile. Stronger than he's ever been, the 6'11" big man is embracing a forceful physical style, overpowering opponents off the dribble and putting immense pressure on the rim.
Mobley drove 4.7 times per game last year, generating 2.7 points per game. This season, those numbers are 6.6 and 4.4, respectively. As a result, the first-time All-Star is posting career highs of 18.5 points and 63.9 percent true shooting.
Why It Matters
Mobley's growth gives the Cleveland Cavaliers a scoring dimension that goes beyond their backcourt tandem of Darius Garland and Donovan Mitchell. Because he's now such a threat to attack mismatches, opponents have to shift coverages toward the middle, diminishing the sell-out attention they used to get away with paying Mitchell and Garland.
Mobley's attacks, paired with his slick passing and elite defense, make him among the game's most complete bigs. Cleveland is firmly atop the East and a worthy short-list title-favorite because of the fourth-year big man's leap.
Norman Powell, LA Clippers
3 of 5
What's New
Norman Powell could always score the ball, but never quite like this. A surprising leap in volume and efficiency during his age-31 season turned Powell from a frequent Sixth Man contender to an All-Star-caliber starter. His leap from last year's 13.9 points to this year's 23.8 rates among 2024-25's biggest surprises.
Rather suddenly, Powell became one of the league's premier shot-makers.
Why It Matters
It doesn't seem like a coincidence that the LA Clippers are 4-5 in the nine games Powell has missed since the All-Star break, a skid that dropped one of the season's first-half darlings into Play-In range.
James Harden deserves credit for captaining an offense with few high-end options, and head coach Ty Lue coaxed impressive defense from a starless cast. But Powell's high-volume, high-efficiency scoring was and is a quiet key to the Clips blowing away preseason expectations.
.png?w=256)
Ty Jerome, Cleveland Cavaliers
4 of 5
What's New
Ty Jerome averaged 10.7 points per game as a 23-year-old sophomore in 2020-21 but was in danger of slipping out of the league as recently as last summer. Now, he's a major rotation contributor to a Cavs team on pace to win well over 60 games.
Scoring efficiency is the biggest key, as Jerome is smashing previous career bests from all over the floor. His 43.8 percent hit rate on threes is easily a career high, but his apparent inability to miss floaters and mid-range pull-ups stands out as the defining feature of his growth. Jerome always had good in-between touch, but he's now among the absolute best on difficult short mid-rangers.
Why It Matters
Jerome gives Cleveland a capable guard who can run the offense or play alongside Garland or Mitchell, deepening a rotation that will need all of its options to compete with the league's elite in the postseason.
With Jerome on the floor without Garland or Mitchell this season, the Cavs are outscoring opponents by 18.4 points per 100 possessions while posting an offensive rating that ranks in the 98th percentile. Cleveland probably hopes to avoid playing a single second in the postseason without one of its All-Star guards in the game, but Jerome's leap means those hypothetical stretches will go just fine.
Franz Wagner, Orlando Magic
5 of 5
What's New
It's easy to forget because the most stunning examples of Franz Wagner's leap happened in the early part of the season. That was back when he was playing like an All-NBA first-teamer as Paolo Banchero nursed an oblique injury.
Already a promising combo forward who'd earned a max rookie extension, Wagner surprised everyone by playing like a full-on superstar for the season's first six weeks. He racked up eight 30-point performances in a 14-game span from Nov. 11 to Dec. 6, after which he went down with his own oblique strain.
On the year, Wagner is posting career-bests of 25.0 points, 5.6 rebounds, 4.7 assists and 1.3 steals.
Why It Matters
It's not quite right to say Wagner's star turn is a problem for the Magic, but it does raise the possibility that he and Banchero are a little duplicative. Two high-scoring offensive leaders are typically necessary for a deep postseason run, but Orlando will need to double down on finding floor-spacing shooters if it's going to build around two on-ball forwards who don't scare defenses from deep.
Ultimately, Wagner's ascent will make the Magic a contender—if they can figure out how to build out the offense around him and Banchero.
Stats courtesy of NBA.com, Basketball Reference and Cleaning the Glass. Salary info via Spotrac.
Grant Hughes covers the NBA for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Bluesky and subscribe to the Hardwood Knocks podcast, where he appears with Bleacher Report's Dan Favale.
.png?w=480)
.jpg?w=600 "Offseason Moves for Every Team 👉")