Sam Mennenga scored 5.8 more points a game than last NBL season

Why this was worth a look

“Most improved” usually just means whoever scored more this year, and that can just mean whoever played more minutes. I wanted to separate the two questions: who scored more, and who was actually better doing it.

Two full seasons, 42 players

2024-25 ran from September 2024 to March 2025; 2025-26 ran from September 2025 to April 2026, finishing five months before these numbers were read. Both are complete. A player qualifies in each one with 10 or more games and 15 or more minutes a game on average, which is why the list is 42 rather than the whole league — a player who barely featured in either season would make any change here meaningless.

Of the 42, 23 scored more in 2025-26 and 19 scored less. The average change was a gain of 0.16 points a game; the middle player moved 0.23. Most of the league, in other words, is a flat line between the two seasons, which is what makes the players at either end worth naming.

Three names, one real question

Sam Mennenga went from 11.9 points a game for the NZ Breakers to 17.7. Nick Marshall went from 4.6 for the Adelaide 36ers to 10.4 for the Tasmania JackJumpers, who signed Marshall between the two seasons. Nathan Sobey went from 17.3 for the South East Melbourne Phoenix to 22.5. The next-best rise in the whole league, Elijah Pepper's, was 3.4 — a clear gap between these three and everyone else.

Sobey's rise looks different to the other two. Sobey was already playing 28.4 minutes a game and scoring well; the extra points came from doing more with a role already held. Mennenga and Marshall both saw their roles grow at the same time their scoring did, which is a different kind of season.

All three also played more minutes: Mennenga from 22.3 to 27.7 a game, Marshall from 16.3 to 26.7, Sobey from 28.4 to 30.6. Marshall in particular went from a bench role, 22 games, to something closer to a starting one, 34 games, so part of a bigger scoring line is simply more opportunity to score.

Pricing the extra minutes out changes the order a little but not the conclusion. Points per 36 minutes on court: Mennenga 19.2 to 23.1, Marshall 10.2 to 14, Sobey 21.8 to 26.5. All three are still up by roughly four points a game once the court time is made equal, which is the part a raw scoring average cannot show on its own.

The other end of the list

A list with 23 risers has 19 fallers, and the biggest drop belonged to Dejan Vasiljevic, from 17.8 points a game for the Adelaide 36ers to 10.9. Chris Goulding fell from 19.1 for Melbourne United to 12.8, and Jaylen Adams from 18.4 for the Sydney Kings to 12.8 for the Brisbane Bullets in 14 fewer games. A season is short enough that both ends of this list can turn up again next year in the other column.

What this cannot tell you

Points a game is one line on a box score, not a verdict on whether a player got better at basketball. It says nothing about shooting efficiency, defence or the minutes a coach chose not to give someone, and two seasons is a small enough sample that some of this movement is just the shape a season takes. If the NBL ever separates true bench time from garbage-time minutes I would go back and see whether Marshall's rise still holds. The 2025-26 NBL season, round by round is where the same year shows up as a ladder rather than a box score.