Anthony Davis, Ben Simmons and the NBA Stars Facing the Most Pressure
For some NBA players, the 2019-20 season represents more than just a chance at a title.
It offers the opportunity to repair damaged reputations, put to rest nagging questions and prove you're worth that big contract that's hopefully coming or has already been awarded.
It could also mean breaking a streak of losing seasons or finally reaching the Finals for those who have fallen victim to annual early playoff exits.
While some stars are carrying house money with them into the season, the following six players will be under the most pressure.
Ben Simmons, PG, Philadelphia 76ers
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With Jimmy Butler gone, the Sixers need a new alpha.
Sure, this could easily be Joel Embiid, given his 27.5 points, 13.6 rebounds and annual candidacy for Defensive Player of the Year. His laid-back personality and durability issues may fall short of true alpha status, however.
Ben Simmons, the team's primary playmaker, is in the final year of his rookie contract before a juicy five-year, $170 million contract extension kicks in. With that kind of money come serious expectations.
The 23-year-old is also coming off an awful second-round playoff series against the Toronto Raptors, one in which he was often an afterthought on offense and ended with averages of just 11.6 points and 4.9 assists.
Then there's the shooting. While we finally saw Simmons connect on a three-pointer in the preseason, he'll have to eventually prove himself worthy of being guarded outside the arc.
His 0-of-17 mark from three coming into the season is a major black eye on one of the game's best young players and something Philadelphia needs him to improve upon with both Butler and JJ Redick gone.
Combine this personal pressure with a fanbase rabid about winning and a wide-open Eastern Conference, and leading Philly to anything less than a spot in the East finals will be a massive disappointment.
Jayson Tatum, SF, Boston Celtics
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Dorothy is no longer in Kansas, and Jayson Tatum is no longer 19 years old.
While his teenage rookie performance was surprisingly good, Tatum is now entering Year 3 with some serious expectations.
No Kyrie Irving or Al Horford in Boston means a need for scoring and leadership, something the Celtics will require from their 21-year-old small forward.
Signing third-team All-NBA point guard Kemba Walker to a four-year max deal means Tatum doesn't have to be the team's leading scorer, but hovering around his 15.7 points per game from last season probably won't cut it, either. Tatum needs a cleaner-looking shot chart, one that features more drives and three-pointers and fewer pull-ups from mid-range.
At 6'8” and 204 pounds, Tatum has to prove his game and frame include more than just scoring. He's been a poor playmaker thus far (career 9.2 assist percentage, 1.9 per game) and average rebounder (5.5 per game), with the potential to develop into a quality defender.
Outside of pushing the Celtics deep into the playoffs, there's some financial pressure on Tatum as well.
After just witnessing teammate Jaylen Brown ink a four-year, $115 million extension, Tatum will be extension-eligible himself next summer. Brown earned an average annual value of $28.8 million despite starting just 25 games last season and averaging 13.0 points and 4.2 assists. Tatum has already eclipsed those numbers in Year 2 (15.7 points, 6.0 rebounds) and has started all 159 of his career games in Boston.
A breakout season, and getting a max extension a la Pascal Siakam (four years, $130 million) could be in the cards.
Andrew Wiggins, SF, Minnesota Timberwolves
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Every year, Andrew Wiggins gets one step closer to salary cap liability and further from his No. 1 overall pick potential. At this point, the best case for Wiggins may be somewhere in the middle.
Wiggins shot a career-worst 41.2 percent from the field last season, and his advanced stats were among the worst of any player to suit up for the Timberwolves. Wiggins finished dead last in Value Over Replacement Player (VORP) with a minus-0.6 rating, behind the likes of rookie Keita Bates-Diop and soon-to-be-retired veteran Luol Deng. The five-year vet offers little outside of scoring and has been a below-average three-point shooter (33.2 percent) throughout his career.
The Wolves want Wiggins to limit his mid-range attempts and shoot more threes, and the 24-year-old said he's off to a happier start to the season following the Jimmy Butler drama last year. This is also the year he told Kevin Garnett he'd be an All-Star, a tall task given the incredible wealth of talent in the Western Conference.
If Wiggins takes another step back, Minnesota will almost certainly look to trade him and what would be his remaining three years and $94.7 million next summer. If he thrives, the Wolves could be a dark-horse playoff team in the West with Karl-Anthony Towns, Robert Covington, Jarrett Culver and Jeff Teague.
Wiggins doesn't have to be the star of the show with Towns around. For now, he's not even on the same level as Covington.
For someone who was traded for a future Hall of Famer in Kevin Love and then handed a max contract, Wiggins' reputation may be decided once and for all this season, for better or worse.
Anthony Davis, PF, Los Angeles Lakers
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Davis requested his way off the New Orleans Pelicans, the new darlings of the NBA, and wound up on one of the league's most polarizing franchises.
If he performs at an MVP level on both ends, which he's certainly capable of doing, and the Lakers make a Finals run, he'll be viewed as a genius. More stars may even end up taking his route, asking out of their current situations in the middle of the season even while their teams have playoff hopes.
If his experiment fails and the Lakers get bounced in the first round, many will question the strategy employed by Davis and Klutch Sports. Players may be more likely to save their requests for the offseason in order to avoid the awkwardness he and the Pelicans went through before their divorce.
Davis is toeing the line between the "best player in the NBA" conversation and falling behind bigs like Nikola Jokic, Joel Embiid and Karl-Anthony Towns. With teammate LeBron James likely falling from the ranks of the game's top players in the coming years, there should be room for the 26-year-old Davis to take his place with another massive season.
And speaking of James, there's plenty of pressure to make that partnership work. The Lakers gave up a king's ransom to get Davis and have little left in draft assets and young players to upgrade the roster further.
Davis will also be the star of a shallow free agent class in 2020.
While his return to the Lakers seems inevitable, so did Dwight Howard's when the center began his first stint with L.A. in 2012. Even Kevin Love sought a sit-down meeting with James to discuss his role moving forward after a rocky first season together with the Cleveland Cavaliers in 2014-15. Only then could he commit to returning in free agency that summer.
Davis and the Lakers have sacrificed a lot to make this relationship come to fruition, and there's a mountain of pressure on Davis to make it work.
James Harden/Russell Westbrook, G, Houston Rockets
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It's tough to say who's facing more pressure in the Rockets' dynamic backcourt this season.
It could be Westbrook, the outsider and longtime Rockets rival who's joining one of the greatest and most productive athletes in Houston sports history.
Rockets fans were trained to hate Westbrook and his regularly inefficient ways, the opposite of what Houston preaches with its analytically driven style of play. Any slip-up from him could result in those feelings resurfacing. If Houston struggles out of the gate again, it would likely be Westbrook, not Harden, who gets the blame—a la Carmelo Anthony last season.
Then there's Harden, coming off one of the most offensively dominant seasons in NBA history but yet to exorcise his playoff demons. The Golden State Warriors are now without Kevin Durant, and Klay Thompson could possibly miss the entire season with a torn ACL, so this appears to be Harden's best chance at a title, even with the improved teams in L.A.
Now 30 years old, Harden's window to assert himself as the NBA's best player is quickly closing, especially given the rise of Kawhi Leonard and Giannis Antetokounmpo. His legacy as one of the greatest of all time at his position is also lacking the hardware accumulated by Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant and Dwyane Wade.
At this point, Harden's name may eventually be thrown around with the likes of Charles Barkley, Karl Malone, John Stockton and others as the greatest to never win a title.
Of course, much of the individual pressure will come down to how well the pair works together. Harden doesn't seem too worried by it.
"When you're that great of a basketball player, you just go out there and hoop," he said, per Jonathan Feigen of the Houston Chronicle. "There's no like, 'Oh, you have to change your game.' We'll figure it out. It's not difficult. We'll let everyone else outside the locker room talk about, 'Can they figure it out?' Nah. We're going to figure it out. It's going to happen. It's going to be easy."
Easy? Unlikely. Possible? Definitely.
This could still be the NBA's best team this season, although no duo in the Association faces more pressure.
