Even Ty Lue didn’t expect this.
At the beginning of training camp, and with a Paul George-sized hole in the middle of the offense, the LA Clippers coach approached former reserve Norman Powell with a question. Lue likes a movement shooter to shake up his attack. During his time in Cleveland, the man slicing around screens and jacking up 3-pointers was Kyle Korver or J.R. Smith. Until this season in Los Angeles, it had been George.
But with George off to the Philadelphia 76ers, Powell was stepping into the first unit. And Lue wanted to know if he could take on even more than a starting role.
“How good are you running around screens?” he asked Powell.
Powell was confident in his response.
“Anything that’s got me coming toward the ball, you can put me in that action,” he said. He told Lue he was more versatile than he’d shown.
Six months later, Powell is one of the NBA’s most improved players and the headliner of our All-Surprise Team. He is averaging career highs in points (22.7), 3-point makes (3.1) and 3-point attempts (7.4). He’s nailing 42 percent of his triples. And he’s followed through with his promise to Lue, who is scrambling him around more off-ball screens than ever.
Before, Powell would curl around picks mostly on the right side of the court. The purpose was to get downhill and force defenders to collapse on him. Now, he’ll flee to the arc for 3s. The actions the Clippers run for him are reminiscent of the ones they used for George.
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He traverses around almost 25 off-ball screens per 100 possessions, not just a career high but fifth most in the NBA this season.
Powell could be the leading candidate for Most Improved Player if not for a recent injury. Because he will finish the season with fewer than 65 games played, he isn’t eligible for postseason awards.
Not everyone who has improved in 2024-25 has necessarily surprised. The Detroit Pistons’ Cade Cunningham, for example, has a chance to win MIP, but he’s a former No. 1 pick who finally got shooters around him. It’s not jarring to see him excel under these circumstances, even if he’s bound for his first All-NBA team.
The All-Surprise Team is for players like Powell, who, to use his words, were “put in a box,” for players whose production soared to an unthinkable level or who had one skill arrive out of nowhere. In Powell’s case, even a championship-winning coach needed confirmation he could make this leap.
Now, Lue knows for sure.
Let’s go with old-school parameters for the All-Surprise Team: a first and second team that each has two guards, two forwards and a center.
Powell leads the list. Here is the rest:
First Team
Ty Jerome, Guard, Cleveland Cavaliers
Statistics: 12.2 PPG, 2.5 RPG, 3.3 APG, 51-43-87 shooting
Sift through the list of the NBA’s best, highly frequented actions this season and there aren’t many surprises. The most efficient play in the league is no shocker: a post-up for three-time MVP Nikola Jokić. The Denver Nuggets average 118.9 points per 100 Jokić post-ups, according to Second Spectrum. The NBA’s second most effective action isn’t much different: a pick-and-roll for Nuggets point guard Jamal Murray. Of course, the man setting the screen on many of those plays is Jokić.
But next on the list is a name no one could have guessed at the start of the season.
A Ty Jerome pick-and-roll is earning the Cavaliers 111.2 points per 100 possessions, marking it the third most efficient action in the NBA.
A defense has only bad options when a screener nears Cleveland’s microwave scorer. Fight over the pick and Jerome has a lane to the basket. His floater is persistent. Jerome will toss up five straight teardrops if he must. He’s shooting 57 percent from floater range, second in the NBA among the 57 players who have taken as many shots from there as he has.
Go under the screen and Jerome will pop a jumper. He’s draining 42 percent of his pull-up 3-pointers, once again second in the NBA among players who have taken as many of those shots as he has.
Defenses have to switch, then hope for the best after creating a couple of mismatches.
Less than a year ago, Jerome was in jeopardy of falling out of the league. Now, he’s the bench energizer of a team tracking to win 60-plus games.
Aaron Wiggins, Forward, Oklahoma City Thunder
Statistics: 11.7 PPG, 3.8 RPG, 1.7 APG, 49-39-83 shooting
Something happened to Wiggins at the beginning of February. With All-Star wing Jalen Williams out, the former second-round pick stepped into the starting lineup — and he rocked the Sacramento Kings: 41 points on 16-of-30 shooting, including a 6-of-14 performance from deep.
It wasn’t just the career-best scoring that stood out. Wiggins began this season taking more 3s than usual, but he’d never come close to chucking 14 in a game. Only a week later, he took 13 against the Memphis Grizzlies, hitting eight of them.
Since that outburst against the Kings, Wiggins is averaging 16.3 points over 26.3 minutes a game. He’s sinking 43 percent of his six 3-point attempts a night. That’s a 24-game stretch — and it’s coming on the team with the best record in the league, not on some tanking slouch.
He’s been valuable as a defender for years, manning the perimeter on a squad that’s become the NBA’s stingiest. The previous version of Wiggins would find other ways to score. He was a crafty roller to the hoop after screens. But scoring this often and in this fashion had never been part of the puzzle.
Evan Mobley, Forward, Cleveland Cavaliers
Statistics: 18.7 PPG, 9.4 RPG, 3.1 APG, 1.6 BPG, 57-37-73 shooting
Mobley might be a former No. 3 pick, a 23-year-old who oozed with potential for years and is now exerting it, but he fits inside this group differently than Cunningham would have. The surprise with Mobley isn’t in the numbers or even in that he should be headed to his first All-NBA appearance. It’s in the style he’s playing.
He’s taking 3-pointers now just enough to make defenses worry. Cleveland struggled last season placing him next to fellow big man Jarrett Allen. Neither was a threat from beyond the arc, and thus defenses could pack the paint. Now, when the ball comes to Mobley in the corners and no defender is around, he rises. He’s pacing to take twice as many 3s as he ever has in a single season — and to quadruple his previous career high in makes.
Over his first three seasons, he rarely initiated the offense. Now, the Cavs have turned him into a playmaker. It doesn’t show in the numbers, just on the court. For example, Mobley’s assists may be similar to where they were last season, but he is five times more likely to bring up the ball and run a pick-and-roll in 2024-25 than he was in 2023-24, according to Second Spectrum.
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Ivica Zubac, Center, LA Clippers
Statistics: 16.4 PPG, 12.5 RPG, 2.6 APG, 1.2 BPG
Zubac’s numbers are up across the board — career highs in points, assists and rebounds — but forget about that. Tune into a Clippers game and you are guaranteed to witness one type of bucket.
The 7-footer will post up on the right block, spin into the lane and loft up a right-handed, flat-footed hook shot. This is Zubac’s obsession.
He’s taken 299 hook shots so far this season, the most in the NBA, according to NBA.com’s tracking data. And he’s shooting 59 percent on those attempts.
Think about it like this: Without even accounting for fouls, which Zubac will draw when he’s wrestling in the lane with a usually weaker defender, a Zubac hook shot this season is as efficient as a 3-pointer from all-world marksman Klay Thompson.
Second Team
Josh Giddey, Guard, Chicago Bulls
Statistics: 14.1 PPG, 7.7 RPG, 6.9 APG, 1.2 SPG, 47-38-79 shooting
Giddey’s Chicago experience began with a hiccup. The Bulls traded for the giant guard this past summer, sending Alex Caruso to Oklahoma City in exchange for a former first-rounder whose lack of shooting became untenable during the Thunder’s most recent playoff run. Giddey had filled up box scores, but he was an imperfect complement in OKC.
Imperfections stretched up north, where Giddey struggled to fit into the Bulls’ offense, which has juiced itself by chucking up 3-pointers without shame. A loud thud arrived in the form of a zero-point, mid-January flop against the Portland Trail Blazers.
But he’s hit a stride after the All-Star break. This isn’t even the Giddey who thrived over his first couple of seasons in Oklahoma City, where he once put up even better counting numbers than he has so far this season. It’s actually better.
Post-break Giddey is a statistical machine. He’s averaging 22.6 points, 10.2 rebounds and 9.1 assists over this period and just dropped a near quadruple-double on the Los Angeles Lakers: 15 points, 10 boards, 17 dimes and eight steals.
It’s similar to Wiggins’ situation, though with one significant difference. Wiggins re-signed with the Thunder last summer, agreeing to a five-year, $47 million deal that now is one of the league’s most team-friendly. Giddey, however, is a restricted free agent this summer. How might this stretch affect his payday, especially if it continues for the final couple weeks of the season?
Payton Pritchard, Guard, Boston Celtics
Statistics: 14.3 PPG, 3.7 RPG, 3.4 APG, 47-42-84 shooting
Pritchard never lacked confidence. Heck, it takes a man who believes in himself to become a team’s designated full-court heaver, as Pritchard has been for years. But he’s never let shots fly like this.
He’s sixth in the NBA in 3-point makes and is bound to top his previous career high by more than 100. He has drained multiple 3s in 14 of his past 16 games. And it’s not like he’s only chucking up jumpers.
The 6-foot-1 guard may be the best offensive rebounder of his size in the NBA, as The Athletic covered earlier this season. He’s a defensive pest.
Pritchard has always been a scrapper. But he’s now scrapped his way into Sixth Man of the Year candidacy. That part is new.
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Jaylen Wells, Forward, Memphis Grizzlies
Statistics: 10.6 PPG, 3.3 RPG, 1.7 APG, 43-36-81 shooting
Where would Wells go in a 2024 re-draft?
In real life, he fell to the second round, the 39th pick in last summer’s draft, when no one, not even the Grizzlies, could have predicted a first pro season of this caliber. He’s started 67 games for the team that’s fourth in the Western Conference, is a threat from the perimeter and has excelled as a secondary playmaker inside Memphis’ movement offense.
This rookie class may be underwhelming, but that doesn’t change where Wells has carried himself: into the middle of the Rookie of the Year conversation. The last second-rounder to win that award was Malcolm Brogdon. Could that bit of trivia change after this season?
Guerschon Yabusele, Forward, Philadelphia 76ers
Statistics: 10.7 PPG, 5.6 RPG, 2.1 APG, 50-39-72 shooting
Yabusele’s is the classic surprise story.
He left the NBA in 2019 after a couple of seasons with the Celtics, for whom he rarely played. After years competing overseas, he helped the French National Team to the gold-medal game in last summer’s Olympics. Weeks later, he signed a cheap contract with the 76ers, a return to the league that didn’t come with high expectations.
Most of the Sixers’ season has gone awry, but Yabusele is one of their few bright spots.
He’s now a proven rotation player, capable of playing power forward or center and knocking down 3s. Someone, possibly Philadelphia, will hand him a raise this summer.
Half a decade ago, Yabusele was out of the league. Now, he’s on the verge of his first payday.
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Isaiah Stewart, Center, Detroit Pistons
Statistics: 5.9 PPG, 5.6 RPG, 1.7 APG, 56-31-76 shooting
Stewart’s numbers are down across the board: the playing time, the scoring, the rebounding — all of it. And he’s not starting anymore. But he’s also a better player than ever.
The Pistons are the NBA’s surprise team. Stewart is their greatest internal surprise.
Detroit is finally playing him at his natural position, ignoring his 6-foot-8 height and using him as a full-time center, where he has become one of the league’s premier defensive big men.
He’s always been physical, always competitive, but before this season, his best defensive trait was his quick feet. Stewart could switch onto smaller players and keep up with them. But like the Pistons once were, he was chaotic. He’d get caught out of position too often.
Now, height be damned, he is a deterrent at the basket. Opponents are shooting just 46 percent on dunks and layups when he is the closest defender, according to Second Spectrum, the best figure in the NBA by a mile.
If Stewart had played enough to be eligible, he would have a strong case for All-Defense. The Pistons are pesky — and Stewart is at the center of their identity.
(Illustration: Dan Goldfarb / The Athletic; Harry How, Jess Rapfogel, Katelyn Mulcahy / Getty Images)
