Predicting 6 Players Who Will Exceed Expectations in the 2015 NBA Playoffs
The NBA playoffs will play out on terms decided by superstars like Stephen Curry, LeBron James and Chris Paul.
But even luminaries like those will need some help, and it'll come from teammates who don't have to perform under the weight of an entire fanbase's hopes and dreams.
Leaving team-leading superstars out of the equation (expectations attached to them are always unreasonably high and, as a result, difficult to exceed), we'll pinpoint some key rotation players and even stars who, for various reasons, may not be on fans' short list of series-swinging influencers.
Using players with zero expectations is cheating. If a guy from the end of the bench manages to get into a game and fling in a lucky bucket, he's exceeded expectations, but only because there weren't any to begin with.
These guys will play key roles for teams with deep playoff runs in mind, and they're all likely to make bigger impacts than most suspect.
Klay Thompson, Golden State Warriors
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Strange as it sounds to say this about a guy who started the All-Star Game, Klay Thompson is a role player for the Golden State Warriors.
Clearly beneath Curry on the team's hierarchy, Thompson feasts on open shots created by his teammate's gravity and the Dubs' unselfish system. At times, he's asked to prop up a bench-unit offense by himself. But that's pretty much it, which is why nobody reasonably expects him to carry the Warriors in a playoff series.
It's also why he's poised to exceed expectations in his third postseason appearance.
Thompson's playoff production has lagged behind his regular-season efforts in each of his last two postseason visits, with his true-shooting percentage and scoring average inopportunely dipping, per Basketball-Reference.com.
It's a marginal decline, but in a league where players are so often judged by whether they elevate their play when it counts, Thompson's past playoff slippage raised red flags.
Thompson became a different player this year, though, adding more off-the-dribble attacks and improving his consistency.
His confidence has also skyrocketed, which tends to happen when you prove you can score an NBA-record 37 points in a single quarter.
Nobody's anticipating a 37-point period, but the 14 points he hung in a decisive fourth-quarter run to secure Game 2 from the New Orleans Pelicans on April 20 indicated Thompson is ready to carry his regular-season growth into the playoffs.
As opponents continue to focus primarily on slowing Curry down, Thompson will get open looks.
And he knows what to do with those.
Tiago Splitter, San Antonio Spurs
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One thing's for sure: Blake Griffin didn't find the San Antonio Spurs' frontcourt defense to be much of a deterrent in Game 1. If anything, it appeared big man Aron Baynes actually attracted Griffin into the lane...with highlight-reel results.
That's where Tiago Splitter comes in.
Wrongly regarded as just the latest in the Rasho Nesterovic-Nazr Mohammed-Antonio McDyess-Matt Bonner carousel of middling frontcourt buddies for Tim Duncan, Splitter brings immense value to the Spurs.
If he's healthy, which he hasn't been.
A bad calf limited Splitter to just 10 minutes in Game 1, but there's good news from head coach Gregg Popovich, as reported by Broderick Turner of the Los Angeles Times.
"He didn’t go backwards, so that’s a good thing,” Popovich said. “Maybe he can play a few more minutes (Wednesday) night, I’m hoping."
If Splitter can play more, he'll give San Antonio its best shot at stopping Griffin. Possessing lateral quickness, smarts and length in a combination no other Spurs big man does, Splitter is key to bothering the Los Angeles Clippers' superstar power forward.
Not only that, but he's developed into the kind of low-block offensive threat who will make Griffin work on the other end as well.
Grantland's Zach Lowe noted in March: "But something fun has happened this season, and especially since Gregg Popovich put Splitter back into the starting lineup late last month: Splitter is lighting it up down low. He’s 36-of-63 on post-ups this season, per Synergy, and 14-of-21 since his promotion from the bench."
Discount Splitter all you want. He's going to play a huge role before the Clippers-Spurs series ends. And if San Antonio advances, he will likely have had a lot to do with it.
DeMarre Carroll, Atlanta Hawks
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You need wing stoppers to survive in the playoffs, especially when the likes of Jimmy Butler and LeBron James stand in your path to the NBA Finals.
Good thing the Atlanta Hawks have DeMarre Carroll, one of the league's least celebrated, most vital perimeter star-stiflers.
Carroll put up 17 points and eight rebounds while switching from everyone from Joe Johnson to Deron Williams to Thaddeus Young in Atlanta's Game 1 win over the Brooklyn Nets. It's true that Atlanta's greatest strength is its offensive system, but Carroll's added grit and versatility have gone a long way as well.
"We have guys that want to work," Al Horford told Sekou Smith of NBA.com. "They come out here and they are working hard on their game, on the team. And it's shown. In the two years (we've been together), DeMarre Carroll is the perfect example of that."
Carroll will continue to square off against each team's top wing threat, and he's a virtual lock to hit a crucial three at some point this postseason.
Underestimate him at your own risk.
Mike Dunleavy, Chicago Bulls
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Mike Dunleavy knows a thing or two about the pressure of expectations.
He was the No. 3 overall pick in the 2002 NBA draft, and though he's always been a capable (generally underrated) contributor, he made it clear quickly that he wasn't going to be the star many hoped.
In a strange way, falling short of expectations so early in his career may have been a blessing.
Now, Dunleavy is free to be who he is, which Chicago Bulls head coach Tom Thibodeau seems perfectly fine with.
"He does what he does," Thibodeau said, per K.C. Johnson of the Chicago Tribune. "He helps you execute, moves well without the ball, makes quick decisions, keeps the ball moving. When he has open shots, he knocks them down."
True to form, Dunleavy hit two big fourth-quarter threes in Game 1 against the Milwaukee Bucks and scored 12 points in Game 2.
Dunleavy will easily exceed one major expectation this postseason by advancing past the first round of the playoffs for the first time in his NBA career. Count on him hitting a big shot or taking a key charge at some point along the way.
Kevin Love, Cleveland Cavaliers
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It'll be difficult for Kevin Love to impress this postseason if we hold him to the standard he set during his time with the Minnesota Timberwolves.
The bar's lower if we judge him as the third option he's become for the Cleveland Cavaliers.
All year, there's been this pervasive hope that Love would either find his niche or be given broader responsibilities in Cleveland's offense. Neither really happened, as he was good but not great as a spot-up shooter and never got a chance to be the high-volume, do-it-all offensive focal point he once was.
Here's the thing, though: If we assume Love's back is healthy, his ability to be more than a secondary contributor is still within him. And as Cleveland's postseason opponents continue to focus on limiting LeBron James and Kyrie Irving, there'll come a time when Love has to step up.
It might be a single shot or an entire game, but the Cavs will need Love to produce like a star. And precisely because he struggled for most of the regular season, he'll get the chance to be one.
Expect him to seize the moment.
Derrick Rose, Chicago Bulls
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It's easy to predict Derrick Rose will exceed expectations in these playoffs—mostly because he already has.
Logging his first postseason action since tearing his ACL against the Philadelphia 76ers three years ago, Rose has looked more like his old self than ever.
Aggressive, reckless, effective—Rose put forth a vintage effort in the Bulls' Game 1 win over the Bucks, prompting B/R's Sean Highkin to note: "It almost felt like Rose has had another gear this whole time, one that he was saving for this moment."
Maybe so.
If anyone has a sense of basketball perspective, it's Rose. Three seasons spent staring directly at NBA mortality has a way of forcing a player to acknowledge which games matter and which games don't. It's obvious that, to Rose, postseason games matter.
Here's where things get tricky, though. We've seen strong stretches from Rose this year, but we haven't seen him sustain them. He surprised many observers by looking like the 2012 version of himself in Game 1, and he followed it up with a solid Game 2.
The real stunner will come if Rose keeps playing like a star for the next few weeks.
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