It’s technically known as the “Designated Veteran Player Extension,” but it’s generally referred to as the supermax, which is an interesting word for some.
“The more I thought about it, I started to laugh,” said one NBA executive. “When I think of ‘supermax,’ I used to think of those big prisons — and that’s where your team could wind up if you f*** up one of these contracts. You make the wrong decision, and you could be locked up in (salary) cap hell for a while — especially with the way the new collective bargaining agreement is set out. It’s going to get harder on teams if they make mistakes with big contracts.”

Seven Ways to Break Out
Matt Powers, The Swish Theory

In the doldrums of summer it can be easy to let the narratives run away with themselves. With no new NBA basketball, imaginations run wild, and there is none more fertile ground for idle speculation than the Most Improved Player award.
This is not a preview of MIP candidates per se, but an appreciation for all the ways players improve, whether starting out their career and finding initial footing, figuring out their role mid-career for the first time, or taking a true, traditional star leap. Improvements happen all over every NBA floor, year after year, so it is more instructive to look at the nature of improvement itself, here in seven prevalent examples.

Sophomore Jump: 5 second-year breakout candidates
Elaine Blum, Hoops Habit

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