NBA Players Ready to Break out in the 2nd Half
As the NBA enters the second half of the season, the seven teams behind the Cleveland Cavaliers in the Eastern Conference are separated by just 8.5 games.
In the Western Conference, the top four teams—Golden State, San Antonio, Oklahoma City and Los Angeles—have taken off from the pack, but until someone solves the mystery that is the Golden State Warriors, not much else matters.
We'll focus on the five players in the East and five players in the West that are either primed and ready for a breakout second half or are players that absolutely need a huge second half for their teams' playoff push.
Some names should look familiar and other names might not be on your radar. Guys like Kevin Love and Paul George are household names, but for their teams' playoff chances and success, they need a rise in production down the stretch of the long season.
Without any further ado, here are the 10 players who are primed for a breakout second half of the season, starting with the Eastern Conference.
Al Jefferson
1 of 10
Before the Charlotte Hornets went all three-point-happy and caught up to the current times of the NBA, Al Jefferson was their literal centerpiece and a big reason the Hornets (Bobcats at the time) made the postseason two seasons ago.
After Jefferson's last in-game action on Dec. 28, the Hornets went into a downward spiral, losing seven straight games. On top of Jefferson's knee and calf injuries this season, he was suspended in early December for violating the NBA's anti-drug policy.
Even with Charlotte's new-found pace on the offensive end, Jefferson can still be a valuable piece to a rotation when he's healthy. The Hornets cling to a half-game advantage over the Detroit Pistons for the final playoff spot in the East as the second half begins and could potentially get Jefferson back on the floor to kick things off in the process.
Jefferson mentioned after Wednesday's practice that his knee had been hurting since the end of last season and that he wanted to wait until the end of this season to get it cleaned out.
"It’s been good. Just trying to get my wind back, my rhythm back," Jefferson told reporters on Wednesday, via the team website.
The Hornets have solid pieces in Kemba Walker, Jeremy Lin, Nicolas Batum and Jeremy Lamb. Add a big like Jefferson into the mix and the Hornets could be a tough out in the postseason if they can avoid Cleveland in the first round.
Derrick Rose
2 of 10
Who would have thought that four years ago, someone like Derrick Rose would be on a list like this one?
The youngest MVP in league history has been on a treacherous four-year odyssey since his initial ACL tear during the first game of the 2012 postseason for the Chicago Bulls.
Rose's workload just grew recently with the knee injury to Jimmy Butler, on top of injuries to Nikola Mirotic and Joakim Noah, who will miss the remainder of the season after shoulder surgery.
Are the Bulls a playoff team? Technically, they are for right now. The Bulls sit in seventh place in the East with Charlotte—a team they have lost three of four games to this season—and Detroit in hot pursuit.
Butler and Mirotic won't be back anytime soon, so it's on the health of Rose to lead the Bulls toward a playoff berth.
Since the opening couple of months this year, Rose has actually played fairly well, but the Bulls have a boatload of issues and not a whole lot of answers. During Rose's rise in 2010-11 when he won the MVP, he covered up a ton of flaws the Bulls had with his explosiveness in the open floor.
Rose isn't the same guy he was when the Bulls made the Eastern Conference Finals five years ago, but he can still be a productive player, and the Bulls need him to be one if they're going to have any shot at making the postseason.
Kevin Love
3 of 10
It's not a secret that the Cleveland Cavaliers are the favorites to represent the Eastern Conference in June.
But they're 1-3 against the their two chief main-title rivals: the Golden State Warriors and the San Antonio Spurs.
Enter Kevin Love.
(As long as he makes it through the NBA's trade deadline on Thursday.)
In those three losses, Love shot just 10-of-31 from the field, including the embarrassing 34-point loss to the Warriors on Jan. 18 that led to David Blatt being fired.
However, in the lone win of the four games—a 14-point victory over San Antonio on Jan. 30—Love scored 21 points on 8-of-13 shooting from the field with 11 rebounds and three assists in over 31 minutes.
The Cavaliers are a different beast when Love is engaged and playing well in the flow of the offense. His defense is certainly an issue, but he's too talented of a player to not be a key reason Cleveland makes another deep run into the postseason.
The left shoulder that required surgery during last year's playoffs has flared up a few times this season, but with Kyrie Irving healthy and LeBron James just being LeBron James, Cleveland can be quite dangerous with a surge in Love's production.
Paul George
4 of 10
In the first 20 games of the season, Paul George appeared to be the MVPNNSC of the NBA (Most Valuable Player Not Named Stephen Curry).
Throughout the first quarter (give or take a game) of the season, George averaged 27.9 points, 8.2 rebounds and 4.3 assists, as the Indiana Pacers worked their way to a 12-8 start.
George appeared to come back to earth throughout the month of December, but a 41-point explosion in the NBA All-Star Game this past Sunday helped show the world how far George has come since his freakish injury during a Team USA scrimmage almost two years ago.
It hasn't been pretty, but the Pacers find themselves as the East's sixth seed with 29 games left in the season.
If the postseason started tomorrow, Indiana would find itself in a best-of-seven series against the Boston Celtics in the opening round. The Pacers would need early-season George in that series and are going to need him to carry the load in the final months of the series.
It's a bigger sample size, but since that first quarter of the season, George is averaging 20.5 points, 6.5 rebounds and 3.8 assists per game.
For the Pacers to really take off and compete in the second half and beyond, George has to hit that extra gear he was hitting during Indiana's 12-8 start.
Tobias Harris
5 of 10
Tobias Harris better hope he can can handle Stan Van Gundy's NSFW huddle discussions and help the Detroit Pistons form a wall to keep the teams behind them in the East away from the final playoff spot.
The Pistons acquired Harris on Tuesday for Brandon Jennings and Ersan Ilyasova, and with the trade, the Pistons seem like a playoff team now.
The 23-year-old is already in his fifth NBA season and with his third team (Milwaukee and Orlando), but in Stan Van Gundy's "four-out, one-in" system, Harris could become a solid piece (on a good contract) around the pick-and-roll duo of Reggie Jackson and Andre Drummond.
Harris is a 6'9" stretch-4 that could play the 2009 Ryan Anderson role for Van Gundy in Detroit.
Despite being just a 31.8 percent three-point shooter in his career, Harris will get more open looks than he got in Orlando with teams focused around the Jackson/Drummond pairing.
Detroit sits in ninth place in the East—just a half-game behind Charlotte—and with its newest acquisition, not many teams are going to want to see the Pistons in April and May.
Anthony Davis
6 of 10
Anthony Davis?
Like, "The Brow"?
That Anthony Davis?
Yes, that one.
But this isn't because he's been playing poorly or struggling. There's just no one left for New Orleans head coach Alvin Gentry to put on the floor around Davis.
No, I'm serious.
Here's the hilarious thing: The Pelicans are just 6.5 games out of the final playoff spot.
(Of course, that would mean you'd get to play the Warriors again in the first round, which isn't fun, but still.)
Davis has been his usual dominant self, averaging 23.4 points and 10.0 rebounds per game on 50 percent shooting, but the Pelicans are going to need more from him if the playoffs are going to be a thing in New Orleans once again this season.
Plus, an even better Davis in the second half would be delightful to watch, but scary for other teams to try and stop.
Blake Griffin
7 of 10
It seems like it's been a couple of years since Blake Griffin was playing as one of the top 10 players in the NBA today.
One punch changed that.
On top of Griffin breaking his hand in an altercation with a member of the Los Angeles Clippers training staff, the five-time All-Star had a quadriceps issue that he was rehabbing prior to the punch.
Oh, and Griffin has been mentioned in trade rumors with the deadline quickly approaching on Thursday afternoon. But Griffin is still a member of the Clippers at this point and Doc Rivers has publicly said Griffin won't be moved before the deadline.
That being said, with Griffin back in the fold soon, the Clippers become the true third contender in the West to challenge the mighty Warriors.
Before his injuries, Griffin was averaging 23.2 points, 8.7 rebounds and 5.0 assists per contest.
If the Clips get that all-NBA-level kind of production moving forward, that potential second-round series with the Warriors this summer could be one of epic proportions.
Danilo Gallinari
8 of 10
Similar to Davis and the Pelicans, Danilo Gallinari and the Denver Nuggets are outside of the postseason looking in.
Despite a couple of knee procedures in the last couple of seasons, Gallinari remains one of the league's underrated stars, and if the Nuggets stay together through Thursday's deadline, his production needs a big bump for Denver to have an outside shot.
Gallinari is under a unique contract with the Nuggets through the 2017-18 season and is the main piece to a puzzle that includes Kenneth Faried and the young backcourt duo of Emmanuel Mudiay and Gary Harris.
Throw in the international pairing of Nikola Jokic and Jusef Nurkic and the Nuggets have younger assets that can make a playoff push, even in the West.
It all starts with Gallinari, however.
Through 48 games this season, Gallinari is averaging a team-high 19.7 points per game, but on just 41 percent shooting.
Denver needs a stronger push from its best player. The 27-year-old has been good this season, but he's going to have to be great in the final months for this young Nuggets bunch to stay out of the lottery.
Mike Conley
9 of 10
Poor Memphis.
The Grizzlies suffered a huge blow before the All-Star break with a broken foot to Marc Gasol. There's no guarantee that Gasol will be back this season, which means for Memphis to maintain its pace in the West it will need leadership and production from Mike Conley.
After some of the things Conley has been through in his tenure with the Grizzlies (look at his eye from last year's playoffs, or don't), this could be one of the defining stretches of his career.
With the second half set to begin, Memphis sits in fifth place in the West, nine games over the .500 mark.
But Conley is in the midst of his worst shooting season ever in Memphis, and if the "Grit 'N Grind" Grizzlies are going to be a hassle in the postseason as usual, Conley needs to be the Conley of old.
Not only does Memphis need the old Conley, Conley needs the old Conley.
Why?
At the end of the season, he will be an unrestricted free agent.
Serge Ibaka
10 of 10
During the 2014 Western Conference Finals, the Oklahoma City Thunder were trounced by eventual champion San Antonio in the first two games.
Then Serge Ibaka mysteriously reappeared from a calf injury and the landscape of the series changed. That's the kind of impact Ibaka can have when he's active on both ends of the floor.
Nobody would argue that the two best teams in the West (and in the league for that matter) are the Warriors and Spurs.
With Ibaka making an impact, the Thunder can beat either team.
(Reminder: They also have two of the 10 best players in the NBA: Russell Westbrook and Kevin Durant are pretty good, too.)
Ibaka has only scored 18 total points in the two games against Golden State and San Antonio (1-1) for the Thunder this season, but his value on defense is where he can be truly measured.
The Thunder have a nice big-man rotation of Enes Kanter, Steven Adams and Ibaka. Kanter can provide scoring and clean the glass, and Adams can knock bodies around in the paint, but Ibaka has the most versatility of the trio.
If Oklahoma City is going to make a push to help keep Durant in town beyond this season, Ibaka is going to have the be the X-factor in the second half and the postseason.
