Legacies: We love to debate them. We love to dissect them. We love to create them and watch them grow.
As we enter the 2025 NBA playoffs, we’re going to see legacies be created for certain players. We’re also going to see legacies be downgraded or upgraded. I decided to look at nine players (and one coach) in this postseason whose legacies I believe can benefit or suffer the most during this playoff journey.
Donovan Mitchell, Cavaliers
What do you think of when it comes to “Playoff Donovan” as a performer? You probably get excited about him, right? Playoff Donovan, however, hasn’t really been a thing in a long time and certainly wasn’t a thing in his first two postseasons in Cleveland.
As a rookie, Mitchell averaged 28 points and lit up Russell Westbrook and the Oklahoma City Thunder before eliminating them in six games. Nobody even cared that he struggled against and his Utah Jazz got dominated by a superior Houston Rockets team in the second round. Mitchell announced his presence immediately and took down an MVP. In the NBA bubble, Mitchell had an epic battle with Jamal Murray in the first round before running out of gas in Game 7. In 2021, he had a good run before losing a duel with Paul George and the LA Clippers in the second round. Playoff Donovan was alive and well.
Since then, we haven’t seen him. As things unraveled in Salt Lake City with him and Rudy Gobert, Mitchell completely disappeared in the postseason. He shot under 40 percent in a series loss to the Dallas Mavericks in 2022 and played the worst individual playoff defense you’ll ever see, allowing straight-line-drive attacks with no dribble moves by Jalen Brunson to blow by him for buckets. No crossovers. No hesitations. Just layup lines.
In his first postseason in Cleveland, the New York Knicks demolished Mitchell and the Cavs. Last year, he had a solid seven-game series against the Orlando Magic. Against Boston, though, he was scoring a lot of points while getting obliterated by the Celtics before missing the last two games.
With the excellent season Mitchell and the Cavs have had, there are real expectations. Anything short of challenging the Celtics in the conference finals will be a massive failure, especially with the way Mitchell has played against them this season (35.5 points on 62.2 percent true shooting in a 2-2 season series).
If the Celtics don’t make the conference finals, then anything short of the NBA Finals will be considered a massive failure. Mitchell has the heaviest expectations this time around because he and his team have earned them. It’s time to deliver and bring back Playoff Donovan.
Jayson Tatum, Celtics
This one isn’t so dramatic, but there is some kind of deliverable here for Tatum.
He was stamped last season with his first championship, as the Celtics ran through the Eastern Conference and cruised to another banner in the rafters. There was so little drama in their pursuit of the title that many people manufactured criticism of the way they won it and how Tatum played during the win. He wasn’t “good enough” or dominant enough in a way befitting of a star, whatever that means. It’s not to the same degree, obviously, but it’s similar to when Steph Curry won championships but hadn’t won an NBA Finals MVP.
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Thunder
Gilgeous-Alexander, the MVP front-runner for much of the season, seems virtually unguardable right now. That’s what all of his peers seem to believe. They marvel at his pace, change of speed, control, handle, balance and shot-making ability. He’s physical in how he gets to the line. Detractors on social media compare his foul-drawing to the foul merchanting of 2018 and 2019 James Harden, but that’s a lazy box-score-watching comparison. Gilgeous-Alexander is physical, almost bully-like in how he draws fouls around the basket. On top of his scoring prowess, he has become an elite defensive player to fit in with his Thunder teammates on the best defense in the NBA.
We’ve only seen the MVP win the championship in the same season five times in the last 25 years, and it hasn’t happened since Curry did it in 2015. Gilgeous-Alexander’s quest to do this and start adding to his legacy is a collision of really conflicting ideologies in the basketball world. This Thunder team is so young, and it doesn’t have much playoff experience. OKC’s one series win was against a New Orleans Pelicans team without Zion Williamson. Typically, teams don’t skip steps on their ascension to becoming champions. Just ask the Celtics.
At the same time, Gilgeous-Alexander has led a historically dominant team through this season. All signs and numbers point toward this team getting to the finals and probably winning a title. Gilgeous-Alexander having a dominant playoff run to continue his season, skipping the steps for the Thunder and winning his first title and the first title for OKC (we’re not counting the Seattle stuff) would truly kick off his legacy and make this season one of the best ever.
Luka Dončić, Lakers
This one feels different from the others.
The drama surrounding Dončić this season has been unreal. We went from waiting for him to get back from his calf injury to show just what this Dallas Mavericks team post-summer moves and NBA Finals run can do to the most dramatic trade in NBA history. The rest of the basketball world wondered how the Lakers keep getting away with this. Once Dončić was back on the court, it was about getting back to being the dominant mid-20s star whom you would have to be out of your mind to trade for any package short of the universe.
Now? Dončić’s mission isn’t just his first title. It’s about embarrassing Nico Harrison and Mavericks ownership. They’ve doubled, tripled and quadrupled down on this deal with every news conference and interview, and it’s become imperative for Dončić to prove them wrong on the court. You do that by winning your first title in a Lakers uniform. You do that by accomplishing it immediately.
The Lakers have gone from “maybe with the right matchup” to a legitimate threat to challenge in the West. They still have size issues, so maybe it is a matter of the right matchup still, but having Dončić and LeBron James together feels different for some reason.
Players have now gone into the mindset of “anybody can be traded” after Dončić was dealt before the deadline. Dončić winning this year would create the biggest cautionary tale for why anybody can’t just be traded. It would add even more drama to the most shocking trade ever and give the ultimate revenge to Dončić’s legacy.
Nikola Jokić, Nuggets
I don’t know what’s reasonable to expect with the three-time (and maybe four-time?) MVP in this postseason. He’s already stamped as an all-time great, and we’re seeing him clear an already high bar and standard that he’s set for himself every year when it doesn’t seem possible for it to get better.
I don’t think the Nuggets have actual championship aspirations outside of Josh Kroenke and the most die-hard fans right now. You can’t change coaches three games before the playoffs and reasonably expect to compete for the title, right? How does that level of upheaval even work for what it takes to win the title?
Kawhi Leonard, Clippers
I know, I know. We’ve done this a lot heading into the playoffs. And I promise, we’re not doing it again. At least not in the same way. I just want to mention Leonard briefly in this way.
For a couple of years, I’ve had a theory that Leonard’s season should not start until January. He shouldn’t be brought into training camp in late September with the rest of his teammates. It should happen Jan. 1, and then he begins ramping up. Throw your load management rant at someone else. Leonard’s knee is bad and has been for years. He started playing Jan. 4 this season and played 37 games. This Clippers team is really good, and Leonard has almost been a luxury for them, not a hope.
If this system really is the one they’ve been waiting for and it works, he’ll have brought a title to three different teams, two of them being the Clippers and Raptors. It’s tough to find a better title-winning résumé than that. But, I know, I know … We’re not doing that again … yet.
Anthony Edwards, Timberwolves
Last year, Edwards did the unthinkable in three different ways. He got the Timberwolves back to the Western Conference finals for the first time since Kevin Garnett did it in 2004. He beat the defending champion Nuggets when we all thought they’d win the West again. And he made everybody stop saying the Rudy Gobert trade was one of the worst in history. The rest of the Wolves had plenty to do with these accomplishments, too, but Edwards was the leader.
He’s the star of this team and one of the emerging faces of the league. His energy, skill and stardom fueled a run to the conference finals, but he ran out of steam and just wasn’t good enough against the Mavs. He struggled in the first two games, was solid in the next two games and had good stats while getting blown out in the fifth game of the series.
