NBA playoffs and legacies: Who has the most to gain in the next two months?

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.

I think we can definitively say Jaylen Brown was the Celtics’ best player during last year’s title run, or at least played the best during it. Some of that was because Brown played excellently, and some of that was his job being easier because of the attention Tatum demands. Tatum didn’t play poorly, but he didn’t shoot well. The road to a title won’t be as easy this time around, and it looks like Brown’s banged-up knee could be a roadblock for Boston if it doesn’t get better from treatment. If the Celtics are going to be the first champs to repeat since the Golden State Warriors in 2017 and 2018, Tatum will have to play better than he did last year.

It’s not about proving himself. Those still doubting him as a star are either bored with how they talk about basketball or don’t know how to watch basketball. But there are benchmarks in basketball legacy lore you have to hit to rise up the all-time ranks. Tatum is 27 and still so young, but multiple titles and an NBA Finals MVP would help him on his way to getting there.

Jayson Tatum elevates for a jumper over Cleveland’s Darius Garland. (Jason Miller / Getty Images)

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?

Jokić is so good, however, that you still think there’s a possibility. Forget the numbers. Forget the 30-point triple-double average. The resignation opponents feel facing him is all you need to know. They just look to stop everybody else and hope the rest of the team can’t do anything. That’s what you set out to do, and it’s a good strategy.

The fact that this Denver team, in all of its chaos, deficiencies and doubt, is even considered as a slight possibility to win it all with a coaching change in the last week of the season shows you exactly how good Jokić is. If he leads this team in this situation to the title this year, the conversations about him will get uncomfortable for a lot of all-time greats. They’re already headed that way.

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.

Edwards came back this season with a deadly 3-point shot and made history with it. The Wolves made a massive trade, disrupting the makeup of the team and dealing a beloved member right before training camp, but Edwards never wavered in how he led. During the final stretch of the season, the Wolves seemed to figure out their attack and avoided the Play-In.

Edwards is still only 23 years old, so he has plenty of time to continue to build his legacy, but competing for a championship at this age would jump his legacy over all of the other young players in the league. Winning a championship when nobody takes the Wolves seriously as a contender, like they were portrayed going into the Denver series last year, would make everybody recalibrate how Edwards is viewed. He’s accepted, but at a distance. He’s more viewed as the wacky neighbor in a sitcom, rather than the main character with the other MVP candidates and top-five players. That can all change.

Anthony Edwards brought the Wolves to the conference finals last season. Can he do it again? (David Berding / Getty Images)

Steph Curry, Warriors

This one is pretty simple. Curry has nothing to prove. He’s one of the greatest players we’ve ever seen. This time around, with Jimmy Butler (more about him in a bit) alongside him, there may be a legitimate chance at winning a fifth ring.

That puts him in rarified air for a superstar. He would surpass LeBron James’ four championships and meet Kobe Bryant and Magic Johnson with five titles. He’d be one away from Michael Jordan and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. That’s pretty special.

Jimmy Butler, Warriors

Speaking of Butler, Playoff Jimmy has been a thing for a few years now. When he got to Miami, that’s when it really took off.

He got the Heat to the finals in the NBA bubble, then they were embarrassed by Milwaukee in the first round the next year, and everyone figured it was just a bubble blip. But the Heat were a Butler pull-up 3-pointer away from getting back to the NBA Finals in 2022, and things got really serious in 2023 when Butler took the Heat through the Play-In Tournament as the eighth seed (after blowing a chance at earning the seventh seed) and eliminated the top-seeded Bucks.

Down six with a couple of minutes left in the fourth quarter as he was headed toward a 56-point performance in Game 4 to go up 3-1, Butler was screaming at Jrue Holiday and the Bucks that he owned them and they couldn’t guard him. He was right. Giannis Antetokounmpo threw his then-coach, Mike Budenholzer, under the bus afterward, saying he wasn’t assigned Butler on defense, so he didn’t guard him. Budenholzer was fired after the five-game series loss, and Butler would lead the Heat to the NBA Finals before they were taken down fairly easily by Jokić’s Nuggets.

Now that things have fallen apart in Miami and he has found his way to The Bay, Butler is ready to unleash Playoff Jimmy alongside what Curry and the Warriors can do. And that combination can possibly create an actual title run. It seems kind of ridiculous for a team that was 25-26 at one point this season, but that was before Butler. The Warriors are 24-7 when Butler plays. Extrapolate that, and it’s a 63-win pace. Butler finally getting his championship would validate Playoff Jimmy and all the drama and BS exhibited in getting out of Miami the way he did.

Tom Thibodeau, Knicks

It felt kind of right to include a coach here, and Thibodeau may be the most dissected coach in these playoffs. It feels like his job is always on the line or teetering when it comes to the postseason. Maybe that will be the case again because James Dolan is involved. His patience can be tested only so much, even if that doesn’t make sense.

The Knicks went into this season making major changes to attempt to compete with the defending champion Celtics and maybe Milwaukee if everything broke right for the Bucks. The hope was that Karl-Anthony Towns and Mikal Bridges would bring the Knicks closer to challenging the Celtics at their game.

Then, out of nowhere, the Cavaliers leapfrogged New York and became a regular-season power in the East. And the Knicks couldn’t beat Cleveland or Boston. Once again, the minutes discussion surrounding Thibodeau’s teams and their style of play has people questioning if he’ll ever be successful in the postseason in terms of winning a championship. The Knicks are lined up in the bracket to face the Celtics in the second round, assuming they get past the upstart Detroit Pistons, and the Celtics have obliterated New York for a couple of seasons now.

Thibodeau’s team getting bounced in the second round embarrassingly could tarnish his legacy. He has a lot of wins. He’s made a lot of money. He’s been to the playoffs a bunch. But would getting stomped by the Celtics get him fired? Would it prevent him from getting another good job? Would this be it for him? Or if, by some chance, the Knicks got past the Celtics, would it change the narrative surrounding Thibs’ legacy? He might be the playoffs coach with the most to change surrounding how people think about him, even if it is an uphill battle.

(Top photo of Kawhi Leonard and Jimmy Butler: Ezra Shaw / Getty Images)

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