The harsh reality of the NBA is that most players will never be the best player on a championship team. The level of talent required to reach that tier of stardom is something few possess, and it leaves a large group of players at a crossroads.
The playoffs are a humbling experience for many players, as the nature of a 7-game series leads teams to constantly pry at weak links, targeting and attacking parts of your game that could be papered over in the regular season but quickly get laid bare in the postseason. For some, it provides a road map for what skills need to be added to reach that next level, but for others it presents them with an even greater challenge.
There are a lot of fantastic players who simply aren’t cut out to be the main option on a great team. Some, perhaps, are not even a No. 2. But for as alluring as it is to be the leading man, there are greater prizes to be achieved for those players who are willing to accept and adapt to a new role. Not everyone is cut out for that change. Some can’t get over the mental hurdle of no longer being “the guy” after having that title for their entire basketball playing life. But those who do can find new life and a very lucrative second chapter in their careers as great secondary options or elite role players on a championship team.
Brook Lopez, for example, went from being a dominant post scorer in Brooklyn (and a defensive liability) to one of the best defenders and a shooters on the Bucks title team. Al Horford made a similar transition to the perimeter midway midway through his career and became a vital part of the Celtics recent run. They are both former All-Stars who sacrificed some of that individual shine by embracing a totally different role, and have had it pay off in becoming champions and beloved fan favorites in Milwaukee and Boston, respectively.
Aaron Gordon might be the gold standard of the “struggling leading man to role player” transformation right now. After never finding his place in Orlando, he has become Mr. Nugget in Denver by giving up the on-ball portion of his offensive game, focusing his efforts on being a hellacious defender and embracing the opportunities that come from playing alongside Nikola Jokić and Jamal Murray. Gordon has been a perfect fit in Denver, but it’s one few expected because, even though the traits all make sense, rare is the player who is willing to take that backseat in service of something bigger for the team.
Gordon has been the glue in Denver, operating as a perfect frontcourt complement for Jokić. He’s able to roam and wreak havoc defensively, switching and scramming like a mad man to cover for Jokić’s limitations in space, engulfing smaller guards with his length and standing up to bigger forwards and centers with his strength. On offense, he immediately thrived as a lurker in the dunker’s spot, patiently waiting for the defense to focus too much on Jokić or Murray on the ball before slipping to the rim for a lob feed.
After playing a critical role on the Nuggets’ title team in 2023, he’s managed to continue his evolution to become even better in his new role this season. Gordon took his one weakness in his off-ball role, three-point shooting, and made it a strength, hitting 43.6% of his threes this season (nine full percentage points higher than his previous career-best year) and has kept that up at 41% in the playoffs. Now he is no longer just a threat when he’s near the rim, but punishes defenses for sagging off of him in the weakside corner or wing.
He’s cemented himself as Mr. Nugget in this playoffs, a fan favorite who will almost assuredly see his jersey retired in Denver one day (the only real question is whether it’s 50 or 32 that goes up). Once a star on a team far from contention, Gordon has given his career new life and new meaning with the Nuggets. While we often use “sacrifice” as a word for players that take a lesser role, you could argue Gordon has gained plenty from the transaction. Yes, he’s given up some of the statistical production for team glory, but he’s become so good in his new role that he is getting plenty of opportunity for those iconic moments himself.
This year, it’s been Gordon, not Jokić or Murray, who has delivered the two biggest plays of the Nuggets postseason so far — the tip-dunk buzzer-beater to win Game 4 against the Clippers and the game-tying three-pointer in Game 3 against the Thunder.
Elsewhere in the West, we are seeing Julius Randle show signs of making a transformation of his own now that he’s in Minnesota, and while it’s been more subtle and less of an abdication of star responsibilities, it’s been similarly impressive.
Randle is now the No. 2 to Anthony Edwards, a role few believed he could play on a successful playoff team after two dreadful postseason performances in New York. Randle was viewed firmly as an 82-game player who wilted in the postseason, incapable of getting his shot off against playoff pressure, hoisting bad jumpers and stalling out the offense with isolation play. Early this season, we saw the worst of Randle and Timberwolves fans were begging the team to find a way to move off of him before the trade deadline.
However, as the second half of the season wore on and especially in the playoffs, Randle has embraced their efforts to keep the ball moving and being a facilitator and opportunistic scorer, rather than a primary shot-creator. The result is the best playoff performance of Randle’s career, as he’s averaging 23.3 points and 6.0 assists per game on 60.2% True Shooting, all vastly superior than anything he produced in the playoffs with the Knicks.
Randle looks more comfortable and more decisive offensively in the Wolves system. He is attacking downhill far more often than we saw in New York, evidenced by his average shot distance being three feet closer to the hoop this postseason (12.3) than in his two playoff runs with the Knicks (15.1), via Basketball-Reference. His assist rate is a staggering 10 percentage points higher this postseason (27.9) than it was in New York (19.4), as he’s a much more willing and capable facilitator. That’s aided significantly by the fact that he’s spending less time trying to create jump shots, where teams were happy to let him isolate 1-on-1 into inefficient shots, and more time getting to the paint, where defenses have to collapse on him and create open shots for others.
What’s particularly important is this doesn’t feel like it’s the product of outlier shooting. Randle is still hitting just 34.7% from three-point range and hasn’t made a single shot from the deep midrange this postseason. Instead, it’s a change in his shot diet that’s resulted in a better performance. He’s been tremendous finishing at the rim and has gotten rid of the long twos and a chunk of his threes and replaced them with short midrange shots. So far this postseason, 54.3% of his attempts have come from inside 10 feet from the rim. In his two playoff performances in New York, just 35.2% of his playoff attempts came from that area.
The result has been a shift in the playoff narrative of the kind of player Randle is and can be, and is a reminder of how the right situation and the right buy-in from a player can make a huge difference. The Knicks offense, which leans on its stars creating for themselves in isolation, played to his worst instincts as a scorer. The Wolves have unlocked something else, and while it took time for him to get comfortable and recognize how he fit, all parties involved are reaping the benefits.
In this new world of apron restrictions and teams getting punished more and more for handing out bad contracts, hitting on buy-low players to create a contending window is even more vital. The challenge is how to identify a player who not only has the skillset to fit into what you envision for him, but has the willingness to change his game and adapt to a new role.
The good news is teams are starting to get a growing number of examples to point to of how it can work out for everyone involved. Lopez, Horford and Gordon have all gotten paid handsomely thanks to their postseason exploits as glue guys for title teams. Randle will undoubtedly reap the rewards of this postseason when it comes time for him to get a new deal this summer (provided he declines his player option). Contenders are now far more likely to hand out the next big contracts to players with proven track records of playoff impact rather than who can pile up points in the regular season.
Finding those players is now part of the blueprint for creating a contender, and teams that fall short this year will be having meetings trying to identify who could be the next to join this list. The next Aaron Gordon is out there, waiting to find his ideal role. They just might not know it yet.