NBA Playoffs 2025: Which Teams Are Getting The Most Out Of Their Role Players This Postseason?

People often ask me why it is I hold such a deep infatuation with role players. After all, the NBA is commonly referred to as a “star-driven league.”

While it is true  winning big without out at least some top-end talent on the roster is nearly impossible, the current salary structure has made it difficult to gain a competitive edge by merely stacking stars. Along with talent, teams need depth, balance and versatility. As we saw this year with the Sacramento Kings, it’s hard to acquire those things when most resources are allocated toward three or four players.

In today’s game, teams are better off finding two stars and flanking them with a strong ing cast. This makes having good role players more important than ever.

Role Players Are Even More Important In The NBA Playoffs

In the postseason, teams have more time to game-plan for one specific opponent. This usually leads to more elaborate strategies being deployed against star players. Specifically, teams will load up on stars and dare their teammates to make them pay for their hyperfixation.

You all know the age-old adage the NBA is a “make-or-miss” ordeal. Well, that is particularly true with role players and the playoffs, where a series can be won or lost simply based on the fact one team’s role players shot better than the other (see the 2024 second-round matchup between the Dallas Mavericks and Oklahoma City Thunder).

That’s why I think it’s instructive to track how good role players shoot from three in the postseason and how different that is from their regular season output (since 3-point shooting is just a volatile stat).

How We Calculate Role Player Shooting

For the sake of simplicity with this post, everyone is a role player outside of the team’s top two guys in points per game during the regular season. We had to make a few exceptions to guarantee we were really getting a team’s top-two stars. For instance, Norman Powell averaged more points (21.8) during the regular season than Kawhi Leonard (21.5), but we considered Leonard as one of the Los Angeles Clippers’ stars (along with James Harden) for this exercise because he is clearly the superior player.

Which Teams Are Getting The Most (And Least) Out Of Their Role Players In The NBA Playoffs?

In the graph below is every playoff team’s regular season role player 3-point percentage and their playoff 3-point percentage. Here is what we have as of Thursday, May 15:

First off, role player 3-point shooting seems slightly down. In the regular season, these 16 teams averaged 36.5 percent from downtown with their role players. So far in the playoffs, that number has fallen to 35.5 percent.

Interestingly enough, of the five teams with role players whose 3-point percentage has increased from the regular season to the postseason, only one is still alive: the Indiana Pacers.

Speaking of the Pacers, they’ve experienced the greatest increase in role player 3-point shooting. After having their role players shoot 36 percent from three in the regular season, they’ve enjoyed a 41.9 percent shooting stretch through two rounds. Guys like Andrew Nembhard (50 percent from three this postseason), Myles Turner (45 percent) and Aaron Nesmith (48.2 percent) have really stepped up for Indiana in its matchups against the Milwaukee Bucks and Cleveland Cavaliers.

This creates an interesting storyline heading into the next round. Can the Pacers’ complementary guys maintain this torrid pace? And if they can’t, how much does this effect their overall offense?

In a somewhat comical turn of events, the team with the worst difference between regular season and playoff role player 3-point shooting is also the worst shooting team in the association. The Orlando Magic’s role players hit just 32.1 percent of their threes in the regular season, and somehow, they managed to shoot 8.2 percent worse in their first-round series against the Boston Celtics (23.9 percent).

One last thing to note. The Minnesota Timberwolves were second among these 16 teams in role player 3-point shooting (38.5 percent). Through 10 playoff games, though, these same guys have struggled to find the bottom of the net, hitting just 33.6 percent of their threes (the second-largest dip of any playoff team).

Despite their role players not hitting shots the way they usually do, the Timberwolves are still in a pretty good spot, clinching a second straight Western Conference Finals appearance. How much more dangerous can they be if those shots start to fall?