Welcome to one of my favorite times of the year. It’s the portion of the NBA calendar when there are only a few weeks left, and the postseason is close enough to where clubs often begin jockeying for position—aka sitting out their best players—to manifest the first-round playoff matchup they want. Oftentimes, only the diehards are watching closely by late March, both because playoff teams are largely known already and because load management becomes a key talking point.
I have a feeling we’ll see less of that gamesmanship this season, if only because the standings are too tight near the bottom in both conferences to guarantee a firm spot in the playoffs, let alone a particular seed. Shout-out to the NBA’s parity this year. Aside from the legit surprises it’s helped yield (like the Kings being in second and the Knicks even looking like a contender more recently), it’s certainly kept things more interesting all the way to the finish line. And the exact same can be said for the addition of the play-in round and for the flattening of the draft-lottery odds.
In any case, with a decent portion of the league scrambling to clinch those last few spots in both conferences, this felt like a good time to highlight a handful of the game-changing players I’ve been noticing the most from fringe playoff teams lately.
