The 5 NBA Players With Most To Prove This Season

Life as an NBA player is a constant cycle of success and skepticism.

Arrive as a highly touted prospect, and you have to show you can do it at the next level. Establish yourself as an All-Star, and everyone questions whether you can sustain it. Dominate through your prime, and then quiet the doubters calling for your decline.

It's an exhausting existence, but it's better than the alternative of never succeeding in the first place.

Here, we'll take a look at a handful of players who face serious questions during the upcoming NBA season. All of them have enjoyed loads of career triumphs, earned tons of money and accumulated awards.

And all of them have plenty left to prove.

Jalen Duren, Detroit Pistons

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Jalen Duren would have made this list based on either last year's shocking playoff disappearance or the offseason's most drawn-out and acrimonious contract negotiation alone.

That he enters 2026-27 with both of those factors dogging him makes his inclusion a no-brainer.

Despite earning an All-NBA nod last season, Duren did not receive a maximum contract from the Detroit Pistons.

According to Dan Feldman of Dunc'd On, the 22-year-old became the first player to earn an All-Star selection while on a rookie-scale contract and then sign a below-max deal immediately afterward. His five-year, $200 million agreement falls well short of the maximum he sought.

Clearly, the big man's postseason struggles were a concern. We also learned during the negotiating process that Detroit was unconvinced about his work ethic. The Athletic's Sam Amick reported that the weight clause—which the Pistons initially wanted in the deal, and which annoyed Duren—stemmed from concerns about whether he was "disciplined enough in the gym to truly earn this kind of payday."

Anyone who watched Duren flop in the playoffs is right to doubt him, and his own team clearly didn't believe what he did during the regular season was a sign of things to come.

After all this, the Pistons are still invested in Duren as if he's the second-best player on a contender. All he has to do to justify that status is dispel concerns that he won't work hard and can't produce in the playoffs.

Walker Kessler, Los Angeles Lakers

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Job No. 1 for Walker Kessler will be staying healthy, something he definitely didn't do in playing just five games a season ago. His 58 appearances in 2024-25 won't cut it either.

That's because job No. 2 for the Los Angeles Lakers' new starting center is justifying the massive price the team paid to get him. Kessler can't do that unless he's on the floor for at least 70 games.

Clearly desperate to appease Luka Dončić, LA sent the Utah Jazz two unprotected first-round picks and two swaps—all for the privilege of paying Kessler $130 million over four years.

Kessler didn't have a hand in the Lakers' decision-making, but it'll be up to him to prove they were in their right minds when they gave up the kind of trade package it usually takes to land a true superstar.

Never once an All-Star or All-Defensive performer, the 25-year-old center has to feature prominently on the short list of DPOY candidates while lifting the Lakers' defense near top-10 territory. That's an unfair ask, but the Lakers treated Kessler as if he were the missing piece in a championship puzzle.

If he doesn't perform like one, the Lakers will look ridiculous for spending so recklessly. Even worse, it might make Dončić realize he doesn't have a chance to win big in Los Angeles.

LaMelo Ball, Minnesota Timberwolves

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Minnesota is betting on LaMelo Ball. Charlotte, meanwhile, decided to move on immediately after the most positively impactful season of his career.

Charlotte may have extricated itself from the Ball business for any number of reasons. Most logically, it decided to sell high on an injury-prone player whom it minute-managed to 72 appearances after he averaged just 33 games over the previous three seasons.

Ball's long-term contract cost and defensive limitations also raised questions about his fit as the Hornets' cornerstone.

In Minnesota, Ball will have every opportunity to prove Charlotte wrong. To do that, he'll need to stay healthy, elevate the Wolves' attack, make a consistent effort on defense and demonstrate greater maturity off the floor.

If he can manage all that, the Hornets may come to regret their decision. If he can't, Charlotte will be lauded for getting out while the getting was good.

Paolo Banchero, Orlando Magic

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Starting his fifth season, collecting a rookie-scale-max salary for the first time and leading an Orlando Magic team that has already made major trades and changed head coaches, Paolo Banchero is out of excuses.

That's a slightly unfair framing of the situation, as Banchero didn't build the Magic roster or pay himself. But he's the guy in Orlando—the No. 1 overall pick in 2022 and basically the No. 1 option ever since.

The 23-year-old has been an inefficient volume scorer throughout his career, one whose obvious physical gifts suit him for alpha status but whose ball-stopping ways often seemed responsible for Orlando's struggles to score.

Far from a bust, Banchero totes career averages of 22.3 points, 7.4 rebounds and 4.8 assists. He looked dominant in the 2025 playoffs and already has an All-Star nod on his resumé.

That said, expectations for Banchero are high. Orlando has invested heavily in Franz Wagner and Jalen Suggs, traded for Desmond Bane and replaced Jamahl Mosley with Sean Sweeney amid reports of tension between Banchero and his former coach.

It's not hard to guess which lever the Magic will pull next if they remain unsatisfied with the team's performance. If tweaking the variables doesn't work, Orlando will have to consider whether Banchero, the constant, was actually the problem all along.

De'Aaron Fox, San Antonio Spurs

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De'Aaron Fox could have been forgiven for feeling a little dizzy after the 2026 NBA Finals.

That kind of career whiplash takes some getting used to.

The San Antonio Spurs traded for Fox as their theoretical second fiddle to Victor Wembanyama in February 2025 and promptly handed him a four-year, $229 million max extension that offseason.

Smash cut to an injured Fox underperforming in the Finals while rookie teammate Dylan Harper effectively announced himself as a superstar in waiting, and everything is different.

Now, Fox is viewed as duplicative in San Antonio—or, even worse, as standing in the way of better, younger and cheaper options. Harper and Stephon Castle are the Spurs' backcourt of the future, and however much head coach Mitch Johnson might say he wants to play all three guards together, it's pretty easy to see that flipping Fox for a high-priced forward could unlock an elevated version of the team.

This seems like an appropriate time to note that Fox is a very good player—one whose failures in the Finals owed largely to an ankle injury. That said, he's never proved himself worthy of a max salary, never led his previous team to meaningful playoff success and could quickly find himself on the trade block if his younger teammates ascend as expected.

Fox is basically playing for his job, which is a wild turn of events given how recently he was viewed as the Spurs' missing piece.

Stats courtesy of NBA.com, Basketball Reference and Cleaning the Glass. Salary info via Spotrac.

Grant Hughes covers the NBA for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Bluesky and subscribe to the Hardwood Knocks podcast, where he appears with Bleacher Report's Dan Favale.