The NBA is a pressure-packed league and everyone feels it in one form or another: Championship pressure, legacy pressure, financial pressure, now-or-never pressure. For most players, it’s simply “make sure I stick in the league and keep getting paid” pressure.
For the players on this list, the pressure is bigger picture — legacy and championship questions. How will we remember them? For these players, a lot hinges on this season. Here are five players under the most pressure this season.
James Harden
Since Donovan Mitchell arrived four years ago, the Cleveland Cavaliers have been one of the best teams in the NBA, averaging 54 wins a season in part thanks to quality guard play and an impressive front line of Evan Mobley and Jarrett Allen. The one lingering hole in the Cleveland roster has been at the three, but this offseason the Cavaliers poached Peyton Watson from Denver to be an athletic two-way wing and fill that role. The Cavaliers reached the Eastern Conference Finals a season ago and got better this summer, they are title contenders.
If James Harden doesn’t become the new weak link.
The pressure on Harden is about legacy. To be fair, he already has an impressive and secure legacy: Harden is unquestionably a Hall of Famer, an MVP, a three-time scoring champion and the $97 million contract he signed with Cleveland this offseason will put him at more than $500 million earned in his career. On that level, his legacy is secure.
However, he’s on track to go down as one of the greats who never won a ring, and that is why the pressure is on him. His playoff legacy is… unimpressive. It has big ups, but also some poorly timed, painful downs. This Cavaliers team is the closest one they have had to a serious contender since LeBron James left (the second time), and if off nights from Harden in critical playoff games sink them, a decade from now the opening paragraph of stories about him will feature his playoff struggles as much as the MVP. This is Harden’s chance, he has to step up and show he can be a playoff force.
Chet Holmgren
It may be a little unfair to have a 24-year-old player entering his fifth NBA season (just his fourth playing) on this list, especially one that already has a championship ring and is the second-best defensive big man in the NBA. But here we are.
Fair or not, Holmgren will be judged on how he performs against Victor Wembanyama and, in the broader picture, how his Thunder come out against Wemby’s Spurs. Oklahoma City and San Antonio are the two juggernauts in the NBA right now, and in last season’s Western Conference Finals, Holmgren was neutralized. He averaged 10.7 points per game (down from 17.1 in the regular season), didn’t shoot 3-pointers or space the floor enough, and at one point literally fell over while dribbling. Oklahoma City used Alex Caruso and Lu Dort to defend Wemby instead of Holmgren at points. While Holmgren will never have the full-time Wembanyama assignment (Isaiah Hartenstein is that guy), for the Thunder to have a chance against the Spurs this season, Holmgren simply has to be better in that matchup.
While neither team is nearing the end of their run, the second apron is coming for the Thunder sooner than it is for the Spurs. Sam Presti and company have a lot more roster juggling to do in the short term (that already started this summer with Lu Dort, Aaron Wiggins and Isaiah Joe leaving). That means there is more pressure on OKC to win a second title (and maybe a third) before that window closes, or at least before the opening gets so narrow it’s much harder to climb through. And fair or not, a lot of that falls on the shoulders of Holmgren. (And on Jalen Williams staying healthy and getting back to an All-NBA level, which is why he is in the honorable mention part of this list below.)
Joel Embiid
This is it. Fair or not, it feels like the final test of whether “The Process” can produce results falls on this season (frankly, “The Process” has been dead for years, but it still feels tied to Joel Embiid in some ways).
Philadelphia has built a true title contender. Jalen Brown and LeBron James join Tyrese Maxey and VJ Edgecombe on a 76ers team with an elite starting five. Plus, Philly has real depth in Dean Wade, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope and Anfernee Simons.
However, the ceiling for this team — whether they can truly bring the 76ers their first title since 1983 — comes down to Joel Embiid and his health. Specifically, his knees. We saw how he can still take over a game and change a series against Boston in last season’s playoffs. However, in the next series against the Knicks he missed Game 2 and did not have the same impact. That can’t happen in these playoffs. In the regular season, if Philadelphia can get its starting five (particularly Embiid and LeBron) together on the court for 35-40 games, that’s a win. (They have the talent to get a high seed even with them playing limited minutes.) They can even find ways to give Embiid some nights off during the playoffs, but ultimately he has to be out there for most games and make an impact, or Philly stands no chance in the postseason.
This is all about legacy for Embiid, this is his chance. Will he be able to grab it?
Walker Kessler
For 40ish games over his first four seasons in the league, Walker Kessler has looked exactly like the big man the Lakers need next to Luka Doncic: a big body to set screens, rolls hard, has good hands and can finish lobs, plus he’s a rim-protecting defensive force on that end of the court. It’s why Doncic reportedly pushed for the Lakers to pry the center away from Utah (and the Lakers gave up two first-round picks to make it happen). It’s why the Lakers paid him for what he can be with a four-year, $130 million contract.
Now the pressure is on Kessler to live up to all of it.
Kessler is fully capable of this, but he has to stay healthy — he only played five games last season due to a shoulder injury and has not played in 65 games since his rookie season — and show some maturity in his game. If Kessler lives up to expectations, the Lakers can be a top-four seed in the West and advance out of the first round, at least. However, if he is not up to the job, these Lakers start to look too much like last year’s version, and that’s not a long-term path forward.
(Note: Luka Doncic easily could have been in this top five as well, he’s now got a roster in Los Angeles that better fits his style of play, but he has to stay healthy and lift the role players up. If he does, he’s in the mix for MVP. If not, his contract extension talks get more interesting.)
LaMelo Ball
LaMelo Ball and the Charlotte Hornets were one of the feel-good stories of last season, an entertaining team led by Ball’s offensive creation that went 18-9 after the All-Star break and got into the play-in. Charlotte was everyone’s favorite League Pass team because they were fun to watch and played without expectations.
Ball is now a key player on a team with high expectations. A team that expects to play into May and wants to return to the Western Conference Finals, where it has been two of the last three seasons. A team that made bold moves this summer and has the specter of Anthony Edwards’ next contract and his future plans looming a few years out (other teams are monitoring Edwards’ situation, league sources have told NBC Sports).
That’s a lot more pressure on Ball than he’s ever played under in the NBA. He’s going to be asked to step up — in the regular season and especially in the playoffs — against high-level, physical guards like Stephon Castle in San Antonio, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (plus a lot of good wings) in Oklahoma City, Fred VanVleet in Houston (another team with a lot of good, physical wings), and the list goes on and on.
Maybe Ball and Edwards click from the start and turn Minnesota into a threat to OKC and San Antonio. That said, Ball is no longer the breezy feel-good story — he has to step up and perform at a level he has not been asked to so far in his NBA career.
Honorable mention players under the most pressure: Jalen Williams (Thunder), Giannis Antetokounmpo (Heat), Luka Doncic (Lakers), Trae Young (Wizards), De’Aaron Fox (Spurs).
