The 12 Most Intriguing Players of the 2026 Postseason

Daniel Waddleton

Apr 14, 2026

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FOLLOWING THE MOST brutal winter I can remember as a New Jersey resident, we are finally in the midst of a 70-plus-degree weather week. It also just so happens to coincide with the NBA playoffs beginning and my favorite bar opening for the season.

The stars are finally aligning.

For the first of three pieces I’ll be writing during this playoff primer week, we’re starting with a repeat gimmick from last year: the most intriguing players of the postseason. In 2025 I did 20, but I am also no longer a college kid with unlimited time to waste, so we’re cutting it down to 12 this year.

Reminder that this isn't a ranking of the best players in the field. This is about intrigue. Who is being asked to take a leap? Who might swing a series? Who has the most to prove, the most to lose, or just the weirdest role in a playoff setting?

There is no formula here. Just my brain working in the weird basketball way I try to turn off but can’t. So here are my 12 most intriguing players of the next two and a half months.

1. Victor Wembanyama, San Antonio Spurs

Season Stats: 25 PPG, 11.5 RPG, 3.1 APG, 62.6 TS%, +8.7 EPM

Was there even a debate for No. 1? Taking the throne from last year’s top spot, Jalen Williams, the third-year Frenchman is making his postseason debut following a near-MVP season, with his consolation prize as a Defensive Player of the Year, First Team All-NBA selection, and 62-win season.

Wemby’s +14.9 on/off net rating swing is in the 99th percentile leaguewide. It's not easy to have that big of a swing on a really good team, but when a player can single-handedly shut off the greatest real estate on the court like, it can happen. Opponents attempt just 26.2% of their shots at the rim when he is on the floor.

He is fascinating heading into the playoffs for two main reasons. First, the playoff chess match. How does Mitch Johnson deploy his queen on the defensive board, and how do opposing coaches try to solve it? Second, how does Wemby’s offense hold up in a postseason setting? He's taken this massive leap, but playoff basketball is different. Coaches get two weeks to scout you, and many stars have need time to adjust their first go-around.

Then again, most stars are not 7-foot-5 aliens with the fluidity of a guard.

2. Jayson Tatum, Boston Celtics

Season Stats: 21.8 PPG, 10 RPG, 5.3 RPG, 54.1 TS%, +3.0 EPM

The Celtics did more than just tread water without their superstar, going 41-21 in his absence thanks to an excellent coaching job from Joe Mazzulla and big contributions from Jaylen Brown, Derrick White, Neemias Queta and company.

Let's be clear that I don't think the Celtics can win a title without him. He brings the best mix of scoring pressure and playmaking feel, he's their most versatile defender, and his positional rebounding remains one of the more underrated parts of his all-around game.

Now that Tatum is back, though, we have seen Boston at times drift away from some of the egalitarian offensive concepts that made them so good without him. He's also not quite vintage Tatum right now, which makes some of the unnecessary isolation possessions even harder to stomach than normal. The question is whether he can reach the two-way level needed to put together this run while still fitting into what made the Celtics work so well in his absence.

3. Ausar & Amen Thompson, DET & HOU

This is cheating a little, but these brothers raise basically the same giant question for their teams. For all the defensive value and athletic juice they bring, how can they stay an overall positive despite being non-shooting perimeter players offensively?

You would think it'll be easier for Amen considering he's ahead of Ausar as a ball-handler and playmaker, but you could also argue the more the ball is in his hands for Houston, the more it has bogged the offense down at times. Ausar plays much more off the ball, but with Jalen Duren as a non-shooter who is non-negotiable for 35-plus playoff minutes, where exactly does Detroit put Ausar offensively to make the spacing work when scouted properly.

The Thompson twins are two of the most talented players in this entire field. They are also both attached to some massive offensive questions their teams will have to solve, especially because neither team has a traditional stretch-five big man that allows them to be the only non-shooter offensively. Head coaches J.B. Bickerstaff and Ime Udoka have some work to do this week.

4. Aaron Gordon, Denver Nuggets

Season Stats: 16.2 PPG, 5.8 RPG, 2.7 APG, 62 TS%, +2.4 EPM

Maybe the single biggest swing player in the playoffs, Denver is absolutely good enough to win a title if Gordon is out there and healthy enough to make his normal impact. They also could absolutely get bounced by Minnesota in round one if he is not.

This is one of the deeper teams of the Jokic era, but Gordon gives them so much of what people consider to be weaknesses of the roster. He's their defensive Swiss Army knife -- best rim protector, best isolation defender, arguably their best helper, and if Peyton Watson is hurt, definitely their best helper. Offensively, he's their vertical threat, and now that he's become a knockdown three-point shooter, there is virtually no weakness left in his game.

He quite literally does it all. His availability, and his effectiveness when available, will be the X-factor for a Denver team that, despite the tough road ahead, given the talent on this roster should have the mindset of: the matchup does not matter. Line ’em up, and we will walk ’em down.

5. Alex Caruso, Oklahoma City Thunder

Season Stats: 6.2 PPG, 2.8 RPG, 2.0 APG, 54 TS%, +1.0 EPM

Maybe not the name you were expecting at five, going from All-Star-caliber guys to an 18.2 MPG role player, but Caruso’s importance to this OKC run also speaks to something bigger about the Thunder as a whole.

Outside of Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, this roster is offensively flawed. Luckily for them, SGA is in the middle of one of the best individual scoring seasons we have ever seen, and from there OKC can lean on the league’s best defense, custom built to wreck modern offense.

What could sink them this spring is simple: all of these defensive pieces still have to make open shots. Teams are going to load up on their MVP scorer and see what his teammates can do. OKC has made it pretty clear the last two seasons that Caruso is their ride or die in big games. In games they don't feel threatened by, he either sits out or hovers around 15 minutes. When they feel threated, they unleash their wardog for 25-plus.

Caruso has the highest on/off swing on the roster at +10.4, but in the playoffs, teams gameplan defensively will simply be to to leave him open. Whether that's in a zone, or guard him with centers and allow them to roam, but either way he will be dared to shoot.

We saw San Antonio have success roaming Wemby off him earlier in the year. We saw Denver have success for stretches in 2025 postseason leaving him in the zone. Few are more important to OKC’s identity than Caruso because their defense is not what it is without him. But he, and the rest of OKC’s defense-first pieces, are going to have to make enough open three's because defenses are going to concede them.

6. Karl-Anthony Towns, New York Knicks

Season Stats: 20.1 PPG, 11.9 RPG, 3.0 APG, 61.9 TS%, +3.5 EPM

Any time Towns is in the postseason, he should make a list like this. The range of outcomes with him is wider than maybe anybody in basketball, and once again he finds himself on a team with title aspirations that is going to rely on him more than it probably should.

The highs have been high. The 2024 second round against Denver. Last year’s first round against Detroit. The lows have been ugly. The 2024 conference finals against Dallas. The way Indiana picked on him last postseason.

KAT will likely decide this team’s season one way or another. When it looks good, he is providing inverted spacing with his outside shooting, attacking closeouts and making plays off the dribble, and holding up defensively. When it's bad, it's dumb fouls, bad shot selection, and turnstile pick-and-roll defense. We are going to see lineups with him at the five. We are going to see lineups with him next to Mitchell Robinson. And we are going to find out whether KAT can help the Knicks reach their first Finals since 1999.

7. Kon Knueppel, Charlotte Hornets

Season Stats: 18.5 PPG, 5.3 RPG, 3.4 APG, 63.3 TS%, +2.8 EPM

It has been an unbelievable rookie year for Knueppel, so much so that he's probably taking home Rookie of the Year over a transformational prospect in Cooper Flagg.

He didn't just break the rookie three-point record, he actually led the entire NBA in total threes. And yet, boxing him in as just a shooter would be lazy. He can put it on the floor, score in the in-between area, make plays for others, and he is a smart, solid defender.

Yet like we said earlier, the postseason isn't always kind to its new blood. Teams have scouted your every weakness. With their likely matchup being the Bad Boy Pistons, the team as a whole will have to make sure cuts are sharper, screens are cleaner, and actions run with more intention.

More specifically for Knueppel, he's just 19, and already such a huge part of the reason for Charlotte's success. Now can he get his game off in the same way? I also specifically wonder if teams try to make him work more defensively. He is not a bad defender, but we saw Boston just last week make it clear Jaylen Brown was going to make him prove it over and over again.

I believe Charlotte is a live dog throughout the postseason, but it won't be without their rookie.

8. Anthony Edwards, Minnesota Timberwolves

Season Stats: 28.8 PPG, 5,0 RPG, 3.7 APG, 61.7 TS%, +3.1 EPM

Is it finally going to happen for Ant? And no, I do not mean in the dumb ring-culture way. I mean from an actual schematic playoff basketball perspective.

The last two years, Minnesota has made conference finals runs behind Ant’s brilliance, only for his offensive limitations to eventually become part of what ended them. Two years in a row, he has run into defenses built to contain him: point-of-attack defenders who can funnel him towards the basket, combined with elite rim protection waiting behind them.

You hear the lazy narratives about how “Ant’s too passive, he doesn’t want it like Luka or SGA,” when the reality is a little more complex. He hasn't always had the full menu of counters those offensive savants have, which makes him appear more passive.

He's now coming off the best scoring season of his career, both in volume (29.5 points per 75 possessions) and efficiency (+3.6 relative true shooting). More importantly, I think he is better equipped than ever to handle playoff defense. We know how deadly he is at the rim and from three, but his in-between game used to be the weak point. That gave defenses somewhere to push him. This season, he had the best midrange year of his career at 45%, and he has added a little more back-to-the-basket game. Time to find out how resilient he has become.

9. Ajay Mitchell, Oklahoma City Thunder

Season Stats: 13.6 PPG, 3.3 RPG, 3.6 APG, 58.5 TS%, +2.3 EPM

We talked about the outside shooting. Now here's the other weakness on this otherwise loaded Thunder team: the lack of playmaking outside of SGA. When he sits, the halfcourt offense often gets stuck in the mud. Even when he is out there, they sometimes struggle to capitalize on the tilted defenses he creates because nobody else consistently punishes the advantage.

Enter Mitchell, the team’s best playmaker outside of SGA. Thunder lineups with Mitchell on and SGA off at least get to respectable offensive levels and allow the defense to carry, posting a +11.2 net rating in those minutes. When both are off, OKC actually loses those minutes. When both are on, the Thunder have a ridiculous +19.8 net rating.

Especially in one-big lineups, I expect that double point-guard lineup to be a card OKC plays a lot. Mitchell is not one of the biggest names in the field, but he might end up being one of the biggest pieces of the entire postseason puzzle.

10. Evan Mobley, Cleveland Cavaliers

Season Stats: 18.2 PPG, 9.0 RPG, 3.6 APG, 59.6 TS%, +2.1 EPM

This Cavaliers team is full of postseason pressure -- James Harden chasing a late title, Mitchell trying to reach his first conference finals, Allen just trying to prove he belongs on this roster -- I don't know if anyone has more pressure on them than Evan Mobley.

Every year there has been an excuse. In 2023 he was too young and frail, and that is why he got bullied by the Knicks’ Randle-Robinson front line. Then in 2024 he just wasn't quite polished enough offensively. Then in 2025 he was hurt. Whether the excuses are fair or not, he has consistently left something to be desired when the lights get brightest.

I honestly believe if it goes wrong again and Mobley underperforms in the postseason, a trade involving him could be on the table this summer. This could be his last chance to prove that the two-way ceiling he's shown in the regular season can actually hold up in spring basketball, because patience in the Land appears to be getting razor thin for the reigning Defensive Player of the Year.

11. Deni Avdija, Portland Trail Blazers

Season Stats: 24.2 PPG, 6.9 RPG, 6.7 APG, 60 TS%, +1.9 EPM

There is not much expectation for Portland to make noise, but if the Blazers get through the play-in and draw West favorites like San Antonio or Oklahoma City, eyes will begin to turn toward Deni.

The sixth-year forward is coming off career highs in points (24.2), assists (6.7), and most notably free throw attempts (9.2). He has become one of the best downhill drivers in the league, ranking second in the NBA with 21 drives per 36 minutes while posting a true shooting percentage on those drives just above 60%.

All of the sudden Portland has one of the elite rim-pressure players in the game and, in turn, has been able to use that pressure to free up three's as well. He's Rip City's offensive engine, with the team +5.9 points better per 100 possessions when he's on the court.

A lot like Knueppel on this list, Deni is not here because I am expecting him to shoulder the weight of a title run, but rather to see if he can show that what he did in the regular season also translates to playoff basketball, because that says a lot about where this Blazers team could be headed as it tries to make the real jump in 2026-27.

12. Nikola Jokic, Denver Nuggets

Season Stats: 27.7 PPG, 12.9 RPG, 10.7 APG, 67 TS%, +8.1 EPM

I think this final one is a little more for the people than for me, because I try not to get caught up in ring culture considering most playoff rotations consist of nine players, not one. But if you are into that stuff, this feels like a really big moment for the big man.

He's been widely considered the best player in the world for almost this entire decade. Along with that has come three MVPs, five First Team All-NBAs, a Finals MVP, and now the first player in NBA history to lead the league in assists and rebounds in the same season. He has broken advanced analytics so badly that people started calling the numbers fake, which honestly might be the ultimate compliment.

He lands in my final spot because some people won't give him top-10 all-time respect unless he wins another ring. I don't agree with it, but these are the rules. With Jokic on the wrong side of 30 and Denver seemingly rarely healthy around him, there may not be as much time as we think. If he goes through Minnesota, San Antonio, Oklahoma City, and Boston, it wouldn't just be ring two, I'd be one of the most impressive title runs ever.

Kevin Durant comes into the playoffs with some of this at stake too, but unfortunately for him, Houston doesn’t have a real chance at the title.