NBA Playoffs Go Time: Five Remaining Players With the Most to Prove

Success in the NBA regular season is a lot like having a good GPA before you take the SAT’s. It looks nice, and it means that you’ve obviously been doing something right, but at the same time you still have a lot to prove. Just like having a good NBA regular season looks nice, and means that these players have been doing something right, they still have a lot of work to do to validate their season as a success. Much like the SAT’s, the NBA playoffs are a test of how well a player and his team performs under pressure when it matters most. Besides having home court if the series goes to a 7th game, there are no other advantages to having a great regular season. Just ask the Dallas Mavericks how their regular season record of 55-27, which earned them the 2nd seed in the Western Conference, helped them during the first round against the 7th seed San Antonio Spurs. A player’s performance in the NBA playoffs shows how well they play when everything is on the line, and can very well define their career. Players like Patrick Ewing, John Stockton, Karl Malone, and Charles Barkley headline recent NBA stars that could never quite get it done in the playoffs. There’s no doubt that these four guys are among the greatest players of all time and during their careers they complied record breaking statistics, not to mention being integral parts of some very good teams. But because of many different reasons (A guy named Michael for one) these players and their teams could never win the big one, and in some respects they are defined by their inability to reach the games highest plateau. The NBA playoffs can also be a time of redemption for a player who has underperformed during the regular season. A championship run can make fans forget about a guy’s disappointing play from October to April, and they will only remember him hoisting the Larry O’Brien trophy come June. There’s no doubt that the players on this l...