5 NBA Players Who Will Enter Next Season on the Hot Seat

The question in the NBA is never "what have you done for me lately?"

It's "what will you do for me now?"

As we look ahead to the 2015-16 season, players with sterling track records will have to prove themselves anew. Personal struggles, roster congestion and even age have a way of diminishing past accomplishments. And for the players we'll list here, next year stands as a chance to validate those achievements...or, if things go wrong, signal to the league that the good days are done.

The stakes will vary.

Some players need to fight off challengers from within their own team, while others may have to perform to extend their careers.

In one case, a championship might hang in the balance.

Typically, being on the hot seat means job security is an issue. But in some of these cases, a potential trade or loss of a starting spot aren't the only consequences for failure. 

Pressure's a constant in the NBA, and these five guys prove that no matter how good you've been in the past, it's always the upcoming season that matters most to your future.

Ty Lawson, PG, Houston Rockets

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The Houston Rockets are gambling on Ty Lawson, bringing in the point guard at a time when two DUI arrests in the past year have pounded his market value into the dirt.

Lawson, in turn, is gambling on himself.

According to Zach Lowe of Grantland, Lawson agreed to modify his contract as part of the trade that sent him from the Denver Nuggets to Houston, making the final year of his deal nonguaranteed. Dangerous though it may seem, for Lawson, there's a financial logic to that decision.

Based on performance alone, he's underpaid at $12.4 million next season. His nonguaranteed year in 2016-17 is worth around $13 million. If he plays well for the Rockets, he can expect to command much larger numbers—especially with the cap increasing substantially, and especially in a world where, say, Reggie Jackson will make an average of $16 million over the next five years.

Lawson is far from a lock to capitalize on his gamble—not with Nuggets owner Josh Kroenke dropping worrisome tidbits like this on Marc Spears of Yahoo Sports:

"

Ty … there were times when he was better than others. But the problems have been there for several years, going back to when we were having a lot of on-court success. I don’t want to go back too far. There were just a lot of times where you were at practice and you just know. You could smell it. You know there is probably deeper issues than he would probably let on.

"

Everybody hopes Lawson gets better—personally first, professionally second.

There'll be a huge payoff waiting if he delivers with the Rockets this year. But now, there's no safety net if he doesn't.

David Lee, PF, Boston Celtics

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David Lee proved he was a true professional last season, absorbing the loss of his rotation spot without a single word of complaint.

This year, he'll have to prove he's worthy of winning it back.

He won't do it with the defending champion Golden State Warriors, though, which is best for all involved. Draymond Green's stranglehold on the power forward spot is tighter than ever, thanks to star-quality performance and a near-max contract signed this offseason.

Lee will become a member of the Boston Celtics once the agreed-upon deal sending him there in exchange for Gerald Wallace is officially completed. That should happen very soon, according to Adam Himmelsbach of the Boston Globe.

There, surrounded by young talent and drastically diminished expectations, he'll get the opportunity to prove he's still a wonderfully skilled offensive player—one who can score down low with either hand, find open teammates on the move and anchor an offense as a roll man.

Lee is not a defender, and he cannot stretch the floor, which is why he fell out of Golden State's plans. His tax-inducing contract didn't help, either. But he was an All-Star just two years ago, and his skill-based game figures to age well.

If he performs in a contract year, Lee could easily command $10-$12 million on a multiseason pact next summer. But if he falters, teams around the league may not be willing to pay for his limited skill set.

It sounds strange to say this about a two-time All-Star with a decade of NBA experience under his belt, but Lee has a lot to prove in 2015-16.

Tony Parker, PG, San Antonio Spurs

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The beauty of the San Antonio Spurs offense is that it works mostly independent of the personnel involved. It's a system based on unselfishness, timing, movement and spacing. Given enough study and commitment, anybody can play well in it.

But Tony Parker takes San Antonio's offense to a level nobody else can, which makes him a uniquely important figure.

No one on the Spurs roster gets into the teeth of the defense like Parker, and San Antonio is at its best when defenders are scrambling to compensate for the breakdowns he creates.

Patty Mills is a spot-up shooter. Manu Ginobili can't play heavy minutes. Only Parker fills the role of chaos initiator so effectively.

And he looked like he'd lost a step last year.

Injuries played a role, but Parker's scoring, assist and true shooting numbers dipped as low as they've been in 10 seasons. In San Antonio's postseason loss to the Los Angeles Clippers, Parker couldn't get into the lane at all.

The stakes are high this year, as both Duncan and Ginobili are playing what could be their final seasons. And the Spurs went big in free agency to land LaMarcus Aldridge. If Parker can't fill his critically important role, San Antonio's offense will lack one of the things that has made it so great for so long.

That could mean the difference between another title and a major disappointment.

Rajon Rondo and All the Kings' Men

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Volatility reigns in Sacramento.

Rajon Rondo is probably the Sacramento Kings player who most needs to prove he can still contribute in the NBA. But after a handful of curious win-now offseason moves, ongoing palace intrigue and the combustible George Karl-DeMarcus Cousins relationship, can we really say anybody is safe?

Kings ownership mortgaged an alarming number of future assets in a trade with the Philadelphia 76ers this summer, so there's little question immediate results are the priority. If the Kings fall flat, just imagine how reactive the front office might get.

Bleacher Report's Stephen Babb wrote about the powder keg: "One way or another, this is going to be interesting. Things in Sacramento are reaching a point of no return where the George Karl experiment will either turn a frustrated franchise around or implode entirely."

Sacramento's playoff hopes this season are dim, even after the moves it made. If it comes out of the gates slowly, the entire roster could be on the trading block.

It probably starts with Rondo, whose career is at a make-or-break point after a failed marriage with Rick Carlisle and the Mavericks. But this is an entire team on the hot seat.

Jeff Teague, PG, Atlanta Hawks

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We have to start with this: Jeff Teague keeps getting better.

Points per 36 minutes, player efficiency rating, assist rate, true shooting percentage—all have been on nearly uninterrupted upward trajectories since Teague entered the league in 2009. And as the Atlanta Hawks posted the most pleasantly surprising regular season in franchise history last year, Teague put up his best performance yet.

How, then, could he possibly be on the hot seat?

First, he floundered in the playoffs, making it three straight years in which his postseason performance dropped off substantially from his regular-season levels. He shot 41.0 percent from the field and 32.3 percent from beyond the arc in 16 playoff contests last year, and his reluctance to shoot became flat-out alarming as the Hawks advanced deeper into the tournament.

Atlanta was banged up in the postseason. Al Horford, Paul Millsap, DeMarre Carroll and Kyle Korver were all hurting. The Hawks needed Teague to be more aggressive in the pick-and-roll and from the perimeter, but he never fully went for it.

Combined with the emergence of the much younger and less costly Dennis Schroder, 21, (who took a significant step forward last season), the 27-year-old Teague's playoff struggles could raise questions about his future.

Teague's contract ($8 million per season through 2016-17) is ridiculously team friendly, and he just led a squad to the most wins in franchise history. But if he wants to be part of Atlanta's future, he'll have to prove his upward trajectory isn't finished yet...especially in the postseason.

Schroder is under team control on a rookie-scale contract for three more years, and if the Hawks truly want to emulate the Spurs, the German point guard is their Parker. Teague needs to seize his chance to solidify his spot in Atlanta's future before it's too late.

Stats courtesy of Basketball-Reference.com.

Salary info courtesy of BasketballInsiders.com.

Grant Hughes covers the NBA for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter @gt_hughes.