5 NBA players with the most to prove this postseason

No more stat watching, no more tanking, no more maintenance days — the NBA playoffs are officially upon us. Greatness or social media derision is basketball’s new binary, and there’s shockingly little room for a middle ground. So with nearly half of the league’s teams already off fishing, we now turn to the tried-and-true adage of “win or go home.”

Though it is a watered-down cliché, that adage creates some very real pressure: that lump-of-coal-into-a-diamond pressure, that hopes-and-dreams-of-an-entire-fanbase pressure, that ouch-right-in-the-legacy pressure, that I-ain’t-finna-be-Photoshopped-and-mocked-by-snot-nosed-millennials-on-Twitter-dot-com pressure.

And here are the five players who most need to step up to the plate and thrive under that pressure this postseason. Some of them are already leading in their first-round series, while others have to get on the comeback trail.

5. Chris Paul, Los Angeles Clippers

It’s truly a shame that the best pure point guard of this generation appears destined to be remembered as little more than every Mike Tyson opponent in the 1980s: out by the second round. The clock is ticking for the soon-to-be 32-year-old Paul as he can opt out of his contract and become an unrestricted free agent in the summer, all but guaranteeing that this postseason for the Clippers may very well be General Rivers’ Last Stand.

Another premature playoff exit could spell the end of Lob City as we know it. Faced with the prospects of his own free agency and that of longtime running mate Blake Griffin, perhaps Paul would be intrigued by extending his closing championship window and joining Gregg Popovich’s Wonder Emporium in San Antonio. Maybe he would even consider coming home to New Orleans and burying the hatchet with archrival DeMarcus Cousins to help form the greatest five-eyebrowed trio in professional sporting history.

To avoid this darkest of timelines, the Clippers will have to pull off some magic in the next few weeks. The Utah Jazz are a force, with or without Rudy Gobert. If they can get past Utah, death by 40,000 splashes seemingly awaits them at the hands of the impenetrable Golden State Warriors in the semifinal.

Does Paul have one final playoff rampage left in him before his time in Los Angeles presumably comes to a close? We’ll all be sweating through our dress shirts like Steve Ballmer waiting to find out. But getting off to an 0-1 start and losing their homecourt advantage sure didn’t help matters.

4. Isaiah Thomas, Boston Celtics

Thomas enters the postseason with a heavy heart after the devastating news over the weekend that his 22-year-old sister Chyna perished in a car accident. Nobody would have blamed the All-Star guard if he had immediately left the team to be with his family. But in a remarkable display of strength, Thomas not only played in Game 1 against Chicago but also posted his second-highest career playoff scoring total with 33 points. He will also apparently suit up for the Celtics in Game 2 on Tuesday before flying home to Tacoma.

Before the tragedy struck, Thomas’ postseason was about silencing his critics: those who clowned his defense, those who wrote him off as a true No. 1 option due to his height, and those who inundated us with piping hot takes on how his iso-heavy style was bound to be exposed once the stakes got high. But now, it’s about so much more than just basketball. We’re all pulling for you, IT.

3. Russell Westbrook, Oklahoma City Thunder

God bless our beloved basketball maniac. After a historic individual season in which he successfully recorded the chase-down block on Oscar Robertson and single-handedly entered the term “triple-double” into the international lexicon, Westbrook now has a whole new beast to slay.

The only statistic that matters in the postseason is wins, and our Brodie who art in heaven is gonna have to rack them up in bunches to legitimize his legend in the eyes of the non-believers. Bow out in the first round, and we’ll have to endure an entire summer of talking heads on AM radio spewing out false equivalencies about the integrity of team-first basketball winning out over the tyranny of stat-padding. We’ll hear the phrase “can never be the guy on a true contender” until our eardrums rupture, and we’ll feel cheated when a stank-faced Westbrook inevitably accepts the Most Valuable Player Award at the end of a Finals series that he couldn’t have possibly been further from.

Forget that. Let my point-Godzilla have his 2001 Allen Iverson run. Let his cauldron of rage boil over until even the Larry O’Brien Trophy melts under the heat of his fiery roar. And may Neptune have mercy on the souls of anybody who dares to stand in his way. I’m ready, baby.

2. LeBron James, Cleveland Cavaliers

Objective slander of The King died last June, legend has it at the very moment that he pinned Andre Iguodala’s weak-sauce layup attempt against the backboard in a cold-blooded and vulgar display of power. But while coming back from a 3-1 deficit against a 73-win team in the NBA Finals to deliver the city of Cleveland its first championship in a hot jubilee guaranteed James basketball immortality until the end of days, the job is far from complete.

Having liberated Ohio from that longstanding sports purgatory, James is now free to set his sights on the “greatest of all-time” throne. And with his three NBA titles representing only half of the total won by that ghost in Chicago, the four-time MVP should have all the motivation he needs.

Contextual evidence does suggest it will be much more of an uphill climb this time around — Cleveland’s 51 wins were the fewest by a James-led team since 2007-08 (excluding the lockout-shortened 2011-12 season), and a champion with a bottom-10 defense like the Cavs had this year would be utterly unprecedented. So all this talk about flipping LeSwitch come playoff time and activating Zero Dark Thirty mode?

Show me, don’t tweet me, King James.

1. Kevin Durant, Golden State Warriors

The Durantula knew from the very start when he took the #HardestRoad to live out his next chapter in the Silicon Valley that it would be championship or bust. To his credit, the 60 or so regular season games we got from him this year seemed to reflect that — 25-8-5 with career-highs in efficiency and borderline-elite rim protection as his leveled-up Warriors proved every bit as toxic as we had originally surmised. Then, a large Georgian man named Zaza flattened Durant’s knee and knocked him out of action for over a month, causing us to forget just how preposterous this team could be at full capacity.

But the calendar has turned to April, and the title push has begun on the strength of a once-more-healthy Durant, who thirsts for the violent death of all your petty cupcake jokes.

This has unequivocally become Golden State’s championship to lose, and not even the Based God Curse can threaten their livelihood. Win and become untouchable; lose and get dunked on by Crying Jordan.

Class is now in session, Mr. Durant, and that target on your back isn’t going away until you get those 16 victories.