Top 10 Worst Players from the First Round of the 2025 NBA Playoffs

For being the supposedly "face of the franchise" for Houston, Jalen Green was absolutely awful. He was just so terrible that it made me mad, and I'm not even a Rockets fan. Jalen Green's entire 7-game performance against the Warriors was the exact definition of "the lights were too bright." I actually cannot comprehend how awful Jalen Green was besides his one good game in Game 2.

Besides Game 2, what did Jalen Green even do on the court for the entire 7-game series? Excluding Game 2, Jalen Green averaged 9.17 points, with a baffling 3-point percentage of 17.78%. In Game 7, when Houston needed him the most, he scored 8 points, shot 3/8 from the field and 0/2 from three. He played 30 minutes too, so he just did a whole lot of nothing.

It is crazy that after this series, he went from Houston's star to like the 5th option. He may be traded away from the Rockets during the offseason, which I can't blame them for. This was a brutal ending to a surprising and exciting season. It was even more brutal that it ended to the Golden State Warriors, the team that has owned you for 10 years now.

I remember when Washington traded Kuzma to Milwaukee. The Bucks went on, I think, a 3-game win streak, and Kuzma said, "It's been so long since I've had a win streak." He dropped a donut in his first playoff game as a Buck. Not just 0 points - he had 0 everything. He did not do a single thing for the Bucks in Game 1 against Indiana. The only stats that were not a 0 were his minutes (he played 22) and his field goal attempts. He went 0/5. Tony Snell can finally rest.

After that joke of a game, Kuzma continued playing awfully. Finally, in Game 4, he was benched in the middle of the game, and in Game 5, he was removed from the starting lineup, coming off the bench and playing only 13 minutes. With Dame going down again, people really expected Kyle Kuzma to step up.

Austin Reaves was one of the most surprising players from the 2025 Playoffs because he was just terrible for the Lakers. Before, he was called by many the "best third option in the league," but he couldn't even break 20 points for the Lakers, and he was just awful from three.

He played 43 minutes in Game 2 to score 16 points and shoot 0/6 from three. In the elimination Game 5, he played 41 minutes and scored 12 points, shooting 5/14 from the field and 2/10 from three. Reaves was awful on defense as well.

I really don't understand what happened to him. He was playing so well in the regular season, even with the addition of Luka Dončić. Then he just does this in the playoffs.

One of the reasons why the Lakers just got dominated by the Timberwolves is because they lack size, and they lack skill in the size they have. Jaxson Hayes is a perfect example of that. He was in the starting lineup for the first 4 games, but he didn't break 10 minutes in a single game of the series.

He usually played only the first quarter but was taken out because he is just not good. He is not good at guarding the rim and was a bad matchup against the other bigs the Timberwolves had, like Gobert, Randle, and Reid. He was expected to be the starting center for the Lakers but couldn't even play double-digit minutes. In the elimination Game 5, he did not make a single appearance.

The Orlando Magic were not expected to beat the Celtics by any means. They lost to them in 5. But come on, can KCP at least look like he wants to be there?

In every single game, KCP was the starting shooting guard and played more than 30 minutes, but did not have a single good game - not even a single game scoring more than 10 points. What he actually did was average 5 points and shoot an average of 25.7% from three. He shot 0% from three in both Game 2 and Game 3. Game 2 was 0/6, and Game 3 was 0/2. In Game 3, he scored 0 points, so I would say they were both equally horrible games.

Don't let his points scored fool you. He only averaged 15.25 in their short 4-game series against the Thunder, but he was just so much worse than it looks. In a historic Game 1 loss to the Thunder, the Grizzlies lost by 51 points, and Desmond Bane had a plus-minus of -51, the lowest plus-minus in NBA playoff history. In that game, Bane scored 9 points in 27 minutes, shooting 25% from the field with a 3-point percentage of 16.67%.

His percentage from the field throughout the series was awful, and so was his 3-point percentage. Throughout the series, Bane shot 30.65% from the field with an abysmal 3-point percentage of 22.1%. In Game 3, Ja Morant went down with an injury when the Grizzlies were up big. You would think Bane would step up, but he did not. In Game 3, Bane scored 10 points, shooting 3/14 from the field and 2/11 from three. The Grizzlies blew their 29-point lead, gave the Thunder a 3-0 lead in the series, then got swept by losing Game 4.

Another big reason the Lakers got dominated is because they lack skill from their bench. The Timberwolves are a very deep team, just all around good, having players on the bench like DiVincenzo, Naz Reid, and Nickeil Alexander-Walker, who can be starters for many other teams in the league. The Lakers just do not have that skill on the bench.

For example, in Game 4, the Lakers kept the same starting lineup for the entire second half of the game, not making a single change to the lineup. Gabe Vincent is supposed to be the Lakers' sixth man, their best player on the bench, but Gabe Vincent just did absolutely nothing for the Lakers. The most points he had in a game during that series was only 6. He ended the series with the Lakers in Game 5 playing 26 minutes and dropping zero points, shooting 0/2 from the field and from three.

This is why you need a compatible bench. You cannot just rely on the same 5 guys for an entire playoff series.

Norman Powell had an impressive regular season with Kawhi's absence. He improved greatly, making some people think he is an All-Star. But he had a below-average performance in the Clippers' 7-game series against the Nuggets. He shot below 38% in 5 of the 7 games played against the Nuggets.

Throughout the whole series, he averaged 16 points and shot just 32% from three, even though he averaged 41.8% 3-point percentage during the regular season. Powell was also a liability on defense. One of his biggest mistakes of the whole series was in Game 4, when Aaron Gordon made the last-second game-winning dunk to tie the series 2-2. Gordon was Powell's guy, but Gordon made it past Powell without Powell even knowing.

After Game 4, the Clippers went on to lose the series 3-4. If Powell had just paid attention and actually guarded Gordon properly, the Clippers could have taken the game to OT and possibly won the game to take a 3-1 lead over Denver.

Before the start of the Clippers-Nuggets playoff series, I was pretty high on Bogdanović as a great bench player. But in this playoff series, I was punched in the mouth with how disappointing he was. He wasn't god-awful like certain players from other teams, but he definitely didn't meet the expectations of the fans and the Clippers staff.

It took him until Game 3 to finally score, with only 2 points in that game. His only good game was in Game 5, scoring 18 points and shooting 50% from three. For the rest of the series, he could not make more than one three-pointer. Bogdanović was also a big liability on the defensive side throughout the series.