NBN Playoff Stars: Who Rose When The Lights Got Brightest?
Dallas Mavericks are headed to the NBN Finals, while Philadelphia 76ers are waiting across the stage. The conference-final results delivered a statement win and a stern elimination—and now the league’s biggest stars have to sharpen their playoff résumés.
The wrinkle: the surviving numbers are season-long fingerprints rather than clean postseason splits. Still, the combination of production, playoff context and what happened in the latest conference-final games makes the hierarchy clear. Ron Mercer, Shawn Marion, Jay Williams, Lester Conner and Nate Thurmond form the core group of players who carried their teams through the noise.
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The Leading Men Of A Wild Run
Ron Mercer is the frontrunner for Playoff MVP—and it is not particularly close. The second-year guard is averaging 29.9 PPG, 5.5 RPG and 3.2 APG, shooting 47.7% from the floor and posting a stout .591 true shooting percentage.
Dallas then treated Oklahoma City like an uninvited guest at the championship party: a 133-108 Game 4 rout, followed by a 128-122 Game 5 win to complete a emphatic 4-0 conference-final sweep. Mercer’s season output gives this run substance; the sweep gives it stardust. He is producing at nearly three times the league scoring average of 9.13 PPG, while Dallas has erased every doubt that threatened the franchise’s deep run.
Shawn Marion: A Nets Run That Kept Swinging
Marion produced the most complete statistical résumé among the conference-final survivors: 29.2 PPG, a game-wrecking 12.2 RPG and 2.5 APG. His 43.6% shooting was below the standards set by the scoring leaders, but his .534 true shooting percentage reflects how efficiently he attacked the glass.
Unfortunately, Brooklyn ran out of playoff runway. The Nets fell 108-137 to Philadelphia in Game 5 and were eliminated 4-1. Marion left the tournament as a force of nature, just not a force large enough to stop the Sixers from advancing.
Jay Williams: The Assist Artist With A Missed Finale
Williams operated at the most absurd offensive tempo in the league: 22.0 PPG, 5.8 RPG and 10.5 APG on 49.2% shooting. His .607 true shooting percentage leads the five players featured in the assist rankings.
That combination made Brooklyn dangerous from every angle. The problem was timing. In the final conference-final game, the Nets needed one more Williams masterpiece and received 137 points of 76ers pressure instead. Elite creation, devastating finale.
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Thunder Gods, Statistical Monsters
Lester Conner gave Oklahoma City a 29.2 PPG scoring engine, while Nate Thurmond owned the glass with 15.2 RPG and added 16.7 PPG and 3.3 APG.
That sounds like a team built to compete. It was. The Thunder survived Game 7 against Phoenix in the first round, dispatched Denver in four conference semifinal games, and pushed Dallas into the fifth game of the conference final. Then came the hard part: getting flattened, 4-0, by the eventual finalist.
Conner and Thurmond were magnificent on the season sheet. They simply belonged to the losing side of the only conference final that mattered.
The Villain: Nate “Tiny” Archibald And A Silent Exit
The biggest postseason disappointment is the fate of Nate “Tiny” Archibald. The league’s leading scorer sits at 31.5 PPG, 5.3 RPG and 8.9 APG for Sacramento—a complete offensive force with a .576 true shooting percentage.
Then the Kings were swept 4-0 by Utah in the first round. Regular-season royalty, postseason exile. If a player’s stock should crater based on playoff results, this is where the floor disappears.