Three former Ohio State players received playing time during this year’s NBA playoffs, but none had a run quite like Mike Conley.
In 17 professional seasons – the most ever by a former Buckeye, beating out Hall of Famer John Havlicek’s 16 – Conley has now played in 108 career playoff games with the Memphis Grizzlies and Minnesota Timberwolves, his current team.
This year tied the deepest run in any of those campaigns for Conley. Starting at point guard alongside superstar Minnesota shooting guard Anthony Edwards and center Karl Anthony-Towns, Conley and company made it to the Western Conference Finals and the doorstep of the NBA Finals before falling in five games to the Dallas Mavericks.
Doing so required the full breadth of Conley’s skills as a distributor and leader. He recorded at least four assists in 13 of the 15 playoff contests he played, with at least seven dimes in five games. He reached double-figures scoring in 12 games.
Conley averaged 11.6 points and 5.7 assists per game for Minnesota, finishing second behind Edwards in the latter number for the Timberwolves. He flexed great efficiency in turning the ball over just 1.3 times per contest – that’s an assist-to-turnover ratio of better than four to one – and shooting 39.5% from 3-point range. He tacked on 1.4 steals per game for good measure.
Conley’s play drew lofty praise from three-time and reigning league MVP Nikola Jokic, who won his first NBA championship last year before Conley and the Timberwolves knocked out Jokic’s Denver Nuggets in five games in the second round.
“I think they’re built to beat us,” Jokic said of Minnesota. “They have basically two All-Stars (Anthony Edwards and Karl-Anthony Towns), two All-Defensive First Team players (Jaden McDaniels and Rudy Gobert) and Mike Conley, who’s the most underrated player in the NBA probably. I love the guy. He’s so good. He always makes the right play.”
From the three time MVP himself, game respect game @mconley11 | #DevelopedHere pic.twitter.com/u23a0wk8Cy
— Ohio State Hoops (@OhioStateHoops) May 20, 2024
A four-game sweep of the Phoenix Suns marched Minnesota through the first round.
While the run to the conference finals is a landmark for both Conley and the Timberwolves, a franchise that had only been to that stage once previously in 2004, the former Buckeye feels he and his team whiffed on some chances to take Minnesota to the ultimate stage for the first time.
“I think in those first few games, just being able to close out quarters better, especially the fourth,” Conley said after the Game 5 loss to the Mavericks. “We really had a great opportunity in front of us, had a lot of leads throughout the games this series. When you give teams opportunities to stick around and make it a one-possession game, they have two of the best in the game at closing the game.”
Still, even as Conley hits age 37 next season, his numbers were as strong as they’ve ever been in 2023-24. He won the NBA's Teammate of the Year Award for the second time, posting 11.4 points and a team-high 5.9 assists per game with a career-high 44.2% mark behind the arc.
Edwards is just 22 and a back-to-back All-Star who scored 25.9 points per game this year, then went out and dropped at least 33 points in five of Minnesota’s first eight playoff games. Towns is in his prime, coming up on his age-29 season. Minnesota has all the pieces to go on another run next year.
“We have to, once again, believe that this isn’t our ceiling,” Conley said. “This is steps toward our goal. The ultimate goal is to be a championship team and we made strides. We did, we really did. We had opportunities.”
D’Angelo Russell
Russell had a postseason with more peaks and valleys than the Tour de France on a day cycling through the Alps.
He started strong with 16 points, six assists and a 5-of-11 mark from three in the Los Angeles Lakers’ play-in tournament victory over the New Orleans Pelicans, a game that clinched the No. 7 seed in the playoffs for LeBron James’ squad. He didn’t consistently perform at that level in LA’s first-round series against the Nuggets, however, which the Lakers lost in five games.
Russell scored 13 points but went 1-of-9 from distance in Game 1. He responded with a 23-point, six-assist outing in Game 2. He came crashing down again in Game 3; in that contest, an 0-for-7 mark from the field left him without a single point while he dished out just two assists in 24 minutes.
A 21-point, four-assist performance in Game 4 helped the Lakers secure their lone win of the series, but the Nuggets knocked out the Lakers for a second year in a row in Game 5. Russell averaged 14.2 points and 4.2 assists but shot just 38.4% from the field and 31.8% from three on the series.
Russell had a strong 2023-24 overall, scoring 18 points with 6.3 assists per contest. He shot a career-best 41.5% from three.
E.J. Liddell
Liddell saw eight games of regular-season action with the New Orleans Pelicans during his first NBA campaign after a torn ACL kept him out for 2022-23. He got on the floor once in the playoffs for his first career postseason appearance, playing two minutes of mop-up duty in a 21-point loss to the Oklahoma City Thunder.
The Pelicans were swept by the Thunder in the first round.
Buckeyes who didn’t make the playoffs
While Conley headlined Ohio State's former players in postseason contributions, four other former Buckeyes played for NBA teams that didn’t make the playoffs this year. Two saw their careers trend in the right direction while the others went the wrong way.
Malaki Branham's numbers mostly plateaued from a year ago but that's not the worst thing for a second-year player. In 75 games with the San Antonio Spurs, he posted 9.2 points and 2.1 assists per game. His 3-point efficiency went from 30.2% to 34.7%, though his overall scoring stayed at the exact same rate – 15.6 points per 40 minutes – as it did in his rookie year.
Brice Sensabaugh spent most of his first professional season in the G League after making his NBA debut during the Utah Jazz's season opener, but he came on strong after making Utah's roster full-time in February. Sensabaugh posted double figures for the first time on March 6 with 15 points and took off from there, averaging 10 in the scoring column with 2.5 assists across the Jazz's final 20 games.
Jae'Sean Tate suffered a steep decline with the Houston Rockets in 2023-24. A right ankle sprain cut his season short down the stretch after the Rockets were already eliminated, but Tate has gone from 11.8 points per game in 2021-22 to 9.1 in 2022-23 all the way down to 4.1 in 2023-24.
Tate also hit career lows in rebounds and assists. With that came a reduction in minutes as he played just 15.9 per game. He'll hope for a bounceback year in 2024-25.
The 2022-23 season was the best yet in the NBA career of Keita Bates-Diop, but he took a step back with two new teams in 2023-24. Averaging 9.7 points per game with the San Antonio Spurs a season ago, Bates-Diop posted just 4.5 per contest in just 39 games with the Suns before being dealt to the Brooklyn Nets. Bates-Diop played just 4.9 minutes per game with the Nets, scoring 1.6 points per contest.
