Supercharged Roleplayers: How the NBA Supporting Cast Has Leveled Up
- Brennan Valladares
- May 22, 2024
- 6 min read
Updated: Apr 29, 2025
The best players have always been lauded for their talents, but what about the others? How have roleplayers leveled up?
The easiest faces to identify in the NBA are the superstars. From LeBron James to Luka Dončić to Steph Curry, these all-time great players can barely walk down the street without being tracked by cell phones and mobs of people. The difference between basketball and football is that the league's top players are on full display whenever they punch in to work. No helmets or pads cover these guys' faces as they try to perform at the highest level in their sport. And yet, for most of the history of the NBA, the "others" have had some luck in flying under the radar unless a die-hard fan recognizes them.
This quiet fame was partly due because the NBA markets the league's top talent, and rightfully so. Stars sell tickets and were the reason why the league grew to new heights when Larry Bird and Magic Johnson entered the association. However, seeing as that it has been 32 years since Bird last put on a Celtics jersey, there have been seismic shifts not only in how the game is played but also in who impacts winning. While basketball has always been five-on-five and players like Michael Cooper and Dennis Johnson certainly were more than just roleplayers, today's game features so much skill and talent that the line between roleplayer and star gets blurrier and blurrier.
Modern NBA basketball is far removed from the days of 2001 when Allen Iverson single-handedly carried a lackluster 76ers roster to the Finals. Today, depth and skill on a team's roster are almost as necessary to win a championship as oxygen is to breathe. The singular skills or roles the "others" provided during the '90s, 2000s, or even the mid to late 2010s are no longer enough in 2024. Roleplayers today serve as stopgaps for the holes in their superstar teammates' games. The more holes a player can fill, the more valuable they are.
The All-NBA players today have the ability (because they are so darn good) to be extremely good at a certain set of skills. Think of Giannis Antetokounmpo and his merciless rim attacking or Steph Curry and his looong range shooting. While these players do so much more than just take layups and shoot threes, they have unique abilities that make them great. Giannis' priority should be to get to the basket as much as possible (even though he settles for jumpers way too much), and Curry should hunt threes because when both of these players do what they are best at, it stresses the defense out and creates opportunities for their teammates. And the evolution we are seeing now among the best roleplayers in basketball is they are better equipped, or prepared, to capitalize on these advantages.
During the Golden State Dynasty, Curry's shooting dragged defenses so far out that Draymond Green's short-roll passing was almost equally as demoralizing as a 30-foot bomb from the greatest shooter ever. Even then though, Green was/is not as complete as the secondary or tertiary initiators of today's game. Think about the second-side action off a Jayson Tatum drive. It's Derrick White, the third or fourth offensive option for the Celtics, initiating a pick and roll and threatening a drive, pull-up three, or lob pass to a rolling Kristaps Porzingis. Or what about Oklahoma City's multiple drivers and shooters? Nearly every player on its roster can launch it from deep off a Shai Gilgeous-Alexander kick-out pass. If the defense closes, these players have the requisite counters to blow by or sidestep for another scoring opportunity.
The comfortability of the "roleplayer" with the ball in his hands is shocking. No longer are players placed in a box and limited to being a shooter, defender, rim finisher, or some other one-dimensional performance. Rather, as the game has evolved, players have been empowered to be basketball players. That means removing the shackles of rigid molds and allowing the supporting cast to explore, within reason, their full potential. And nothing has shone a brighter light on the evolution and impact of the "others" than this postseason.
After two disheartening losses on their home court, the Denver Nuggets needed an answer to the swarming, engulfing Minnesota Timberwolves' defense. Jamal Murray struggled, much like the Sun's trio in the opening round, to get past the backcourt pressure of Jaden McDaniels and Nickeil Alexander-Walker. This defensive intensity caused Murray to rush through his routine two-man game with Nikola Jokić. The next three games were much different stories, as head coach Michael Malone went to 10-year veteran Aaron Gordon to be more of the initiator for the Nuggets. Ever since Gordon was traded to Denver in 2021, he slowly became synonymous with the dunker spot. However, during his Orlando Magic tenure, he was thrown into multiple different roles, offering him the opportunity to explore different parts of his game. While those Orlando teams did not have much success in terms of wins, Gordon did show flashes of being a primary ball handler. So, when his name was called to step up and relieve some of the pressure off of Murray, Gordon was more than capable.
Situation is everything in the NBA. Not only does it matter where a player gets drafted, but the in-game situations they are placed in can also determine the success of their careers. As I have written about before, positional caps are being overruled by skills. The superstars of today's game aren't capped by what position they play. Instead, they are free to be the best basketball player they can be. This liberation from positional caps has a downstream effect on the surrounding players of the contemporary superstar. Sure, Aaron Gordon didn't become the number one option after games one and two. But, because he consistently works on all aspects of his game, and had experience being a miscast 1A talent, he was ready to step up in a way the traditional roleplayer would not have been 10-15 years ago.
Gordon is not the only example of a "roleplayer" performing beyond what his typical role calls for. If there is one lesson these playoffs have taught us, it would be that the more basketball players a team has, the more likely they are to overcome a poor shooting night, injury, or some other fault of the centerpiece of the team. In Dallas, an injured Luka Dončić had to rely on P.J. Washington to not only hit his open shots but also defend MVP runner-up, Shai Gigeous-Alexander. Washington, similar to Gordon, had more offensive responsibility earlier in his career. He had his moments, like his 43-point bomb earlier this year (a game in which he went 7-for-9 from deep), and another performance where he matched those 43 points against the team he helped vanquish in this year's playoffs, the Oklahoma City Thunder.
However, Washington wasn't playing winning basketball in North Carolina. He had a diverse skillset that could be maximized by playing alongside a 1A player. So, during Dallas' series against the Thunder, Washington was more than capable of hitting wide-open threes. He was more than capable of buying in defensively and occasionally using his size to take advantage of a mismatch. And, when the Mavericks needed him to hit clutch free throws to close a series, P.J. Washington stepped to the line and buried them to help his team advance to the Western Conference Finals.
Again, superstars can take a team to new heights. The players surrounding that superstar, though, can be the ones that can fill in all the areas that take a team from pretending to contending. And in today's game, the other three to four guys on the court have never been more skilled or prepared to step up when it matters most. Just think about the plethora of ball-handlers the Thunder have. The agility and defensive tools a team like Minnesota has. Or even the cutting, shooting, and defense of players like Herb Jones and Trey Murphy III. Basketball is about having the best team. To do so today, you need players who can fulfill multiple roles at any point during a game or series.
The evolution of the roleplayer from serving one purpose to providing flexibility and versatility has changed the landscape of not only team building but also how we as fans think about player development at all levels of the sport. It's time to put aside antiquated and fixed definitions of how a player should play. Basketball is everchanging and it demands that its participants be just as free-flowing and adaptable.
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