The NBA’s 7 most important players this season

NBA championships are often won and lost in the summer. While trades and free agency signings usually get all of the attention, internal development from young players or the ability to stave off decline from older ones usually goes a long way to determining which team is holding the Larry O’Brien trophy in June.

Derrick White’s emergence into one of the league’s best role players helped push the Celtics to a championship last year. Andrew Wiggins finally putting it all together as a rebounder, defender, and slasher helped make the Warriors champions around Stephen Curry’s brilliance in 2022. When Anthony Davis started knocking down jumpers in the bubble in 2020, suddenly the Los Angeles Lakers looked unstoppable.

With the league more wide open than ever entering the 2024-2025 season, here’s a list of six players whose performance this season will help determine the title picture this season behind the league-favorite Boston Celtics.

Jamal Murray, G, Denver Nuggets

Come up with a list of the top-15 NBA players of all-time in your head. All of them have played with future Hall of Famers. Nikola Jokic deserves inclusion, and he’s never even played with an All-Star.

No one can discount Jokic’s genius at his point. He willed the Nuggets to their first championship in franchise history in 2023, and he’s one of nine players in league history to win at least three MVP awards. Jokic remains at the top of his game at age-29, but the roster around him has been crumbling since Denver’s title run. It’s easy to see the departures of Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, Bruce Brown, and Jeff Green as the Nuggets’ biggest issue, but to save their future, it’s Jamal Murray who needs to prove he can still be the No. 2 option on a championship team.

Murray may have never been named an All-Star, but he often plays like an All-NBA player in the playoffs. That changed earlier this year: Murray was extremely underwhelming in the 2024 NBA Playoffs, and looked even worse for Canada in the Paris Olympics. Murray’s play dropped significantly after a knee injury shortly following the All-Star break. He should be able to recover from any physical ailments at 27 years old, but the stakes have never been higher as the rest of Denver’s roster bleeds talent.

If Murray is looking like playoff hero again this postseason, the Nuggets can absolutely win the title, assuming they get some development from the younger players on the roster. If he continues to look bad, the Nuggets are going to have a hard time rescuing the Jokic era with Murray starting a four-year, $208 million extension next season. Murray’s performance has the potential to decide the championship picture as much as any other player in the league.

Joel Embiid, C, Philadelphia 76ers

Joel Embiid is a consensus top-5 player in the world at his best. The 76ers looked like an elite team with him in the lineup last season, going 31-8 in games he played. There’s only one problem: Embiid has a long and painful injury history, and without him, Philly is toast. The Sixers went 16-27 in games he missed last year.

Embiid is now 30 years old, and he’s never reached the conference finals despite playing in the much weaker East. The Sixers have spent his entire career dealing with a long list of bullshit, but it finally feels like they have the right pieces around him. Tyrese Maxey has turned into a star guard on the brink of his 24th birthday. This summer, they used cap space to sign Paul George. It feels like a perfectly complementary ‘big three’ on paper, but that’s only true if Embiid can be healthy and dominant in the playoffs like he often is in the regular season.

Listed 7-foot, 280 pounds, Embiid is the type of highly skilled battering ram even great teams don’t have an answer for. He’s shown real growth as a passer and decision-maker in recent years, and no one can doubt his scoring touch or rim protection. Embiid’s 90s-born superstar peers (Jokic and Giannis Antetokounmpo) have won rings while he’s still trying to make a final four. With his knees slowly getting worn down by injuries and age, there’s no telling how long he’ll remain playing at an MVP level. It might not be now or never for Embiid quite yet, but it’s getting close.

Photo by Stacy Revere/Getty Images

Damian Lillard, G, Milwaukee Bucks

Damian Lillard was coming off arguably the best season of his career at age-32 when the Bucks finally pried him out of Portland. Milwaukee’s bold Lillard trade was supposed to extend the team’s championship window around Giannis Antetokounmpo by giving him the type of offensive supernova guard he had never played with before. Instead, the Bucks just looked older and shakier in his first year with the team.

Now 34 years old, Lillard doesn’t have much time left to regain his status as an elite player. Everyone agrees he’s one of the worst perimeter defenders in the league. His value is completely tied to his offensive production, and last season he posted one of the lowest three-point percentages of his career (35.4 percent) while his efficiency also slipped from inside the arc.

The pairing a deadly pull-up shooter like Lillard with Antetokounmpo’s powerful inside scoring remains intoxicating. They should form the best two-man game in the league, but it wasn’t as deadly as it seemed on paper last season. With Khris Middleton and Brook Lopez getting old and the depth still depleted, it’s on Lillard and Giannis to carry the team. Giannis always holds up his end of the bargain. Can Lillard still do the same?

Karl-Anthony Towns, C, New York Knicks

The Knicks’ completed their daring vision to build a purported championship contender around Jalen Brunson with two major trades this summer. The offseason started by essentially trading six first-round picks for Mikal Bridges, and it ended by swapping out Julius Randle and Donte DeVincenzo for Karl-Anthony Towns.

KAT fills the Knicks’ hole at center after losing Isaiah Hartenstein in free agency while also giving them a five-out look they didn’t have before. Towns is a knockdown three-point shooter as a 7-footer, which should open the floor for Brunson’s tough drives to the rim. It sounds great in theory, but Towns has long been a player who leaves fans wanting more.

The pressure for Towns comes on the defensive end. He has never been anything close to a defensive anchor in the middle. Towns lacks coverage versatility in the pick-and-roll and has often been called soft by fans and peers. For the Knicks to reach their potential, Towns can’t just spot-up and shoot — he needs to be the last line of defense at the rim and a dependable rebounder. KAT isn’t always a sieve on defense: he defended Jokic admirably in the playoffs last season to help the Wolves pull off a massive upset. Feel of the burden of carrying the team offensively every night, Towns needs to play more like a traditional big man if New York’s championship dreams are ever going to come true.

Photo by Tim Heitman/Getty Images

Klay Thompson, G, Dallas Mavericks

Klay Thompson seemed miserable on the Golden State Warriors last season as he gave fans an honest and vulnerable look at what it’s like when a star athlete starts to slip from his peak. As he signed with the Dallas Mavericks this summer, Thompson gets another chance to prove he can still be a dependable player on a great team. The Mavs’ ability to win the Western Conference again might hinge on it.

Thompson can still shoot the rock at a high level, and that should make him a great fit on the Mavs. With Luka Doncic and Kyrie Irving commanding so much defensive attention, Thompson should be plenty of open catch-and-shoot looks from three. You can still count on him to knock those down.

The questions come on the other end of the floor: Thompson is no longer the ace defender he was in his youth, and Doncic and Irving aren’t exactly defensive stoppers, either. While Irving’s defense looked better in last year’s playoffs, it’s very possible that Dallas can’t close games with Doncic-Irving-Thompson on the floor together because the defense is too bad. If Thompson can dig deep to survive defensively in high-leverage playoff situations, Dallas just might have the perfect complement to their two stars. The downside risk just feels immense. It’s on Klay to make this trio work.

Photo by Nick Cammett/Getty Images

Evan Mobley, F/C, Cleveland Cavaliers

The Cavs have been a very good regular season team since trading for Donovan Mitchell two years ago. Cleveland accomplished its goal of winning a playoff series last year, but it still wasn’t enough to save head coach JB Bickerstaff’s job. Now it’s Kenny Atkinson’s turn to maximize a talented group of starters with major positional overlap. If Cleveland has another step in them, it comes from Evan Mobley getting even better.

Mobley is a mobile 7-footer who has already proven to be one of the league’s best defenders during his first three pro seasons. There has always been more offensive upside in his game, and at 23 years old, this could be the time for it to come to fruition. Mobley plays the four next to a non-shooting center in Jarrett Allen in Cleveland’s starting and closing lineups. To avoid a clogged offensive floor, Mobley either needs to improve as a three-point shooter or get better at creating with the ball in his hands. Both are absolutely possible for a player this talented, but these are difficult leaps to make for anyone.

I’ve always been a big believer in Mobley’s talent. He has the potential to be an All-NBA player one day, but it remains to be seen if his best position is the four or the five. As long as Allen is around, it’s on Mobley to make the pairing work offensively to furthering his skill development. If it happens, Cleveland just might be Boston’s biggest competition in the East.

Al Horford, C, Boston Celtics

Joakim Noah and Corey Brewer have been out of the NBA for so long at this point that it’s hard to believe their old college teammate is still playing a critical role on the league’s best team. Al Horford looked as great as ever last season as the Celtics dominated their way to the championship. Now 38 years old, Horford’s game has to fall off eventually … right?

The Celtics need at least one more year of high level production out of Horford. With Kristaps Porzingis out for the first half of the season as he recovers from surgery, Horford is going to have to log important minutes as Boston’s starting big. He continues to move remarkably well for someone his age, and his evolution as a three-point shooter has made him a perfect fit in the Celtics’ three-point heavy attack.

Horford is going to age out of dependability at some point. If he suddenly falls off this year, the Celtics’ bid for back-to-back titles becomes a lot more difficult than it seems right now. If the season opener is any indication, Horford can still be effective, and that helps make Boston look almost unbeatable.