5 players who could be due for regression this season

The NBA is a zero-sum game. Each season, a group of players takes a leap forward; another takes a corresponding step back. Who can we expect to fall into the latter category in 2017-18?

Before you freak out about seeing your faves included herein, please accept this qualifier: Most of these players are very good, which means they have a long way to fall, which means they'll likely remain good even if they do fall off. With that, here are five players who may be primed for regression this coming season.

Isaiah Thomas

Thomas would've been hard-pressed to repeat his otherworldly 2016-17, even if he wasn't coming into a new situation that's historically proven difficult to adjust to, not to mention entering this season under the cloud of a hip injury that could sideline him until 2018.

The All-NBA point guard blew away his career bests in every conceivable shooting category last season, from the mid-range to the 3-point line to the charity stripe. He topped his previous high in true shooting by 46 percentage points. He averaged 30.8 points per 36 minutes, the most ever for a player under 6-foot-3. He did it all while turning the ball over at a career-low rate, and while using a career-high 34 percent of his team's possessions.

Playing alongside LeBron James will fundamentally change Thomas' offensive responsibilities. It will mean less ball dominance, more off-ball movement, and more off-the-catch shooting. Those aren't bad things in a vacuum, but they'll require some recalibration on Thomas' part. Coupled with the injury concerns, those factors can be expected to pull his production down considerably.

Kyle Lowry

Like Thomas, Lowry is coming off a breakout shooting season in which he blew his previous career marks out of the water. But Lowry's campaign was arguably even more anomalous, given that he had a far larger career sample to draw on beforehand, and that his breakout came in his age-31 season.

Lowry's dramatically improved shooting - particularly off the dribble - has helped him defy the typical aging curve for players his size, but durability remains a bit of a concern, and expecting him to play over 37 minutes a game for a third straight year should be out of the question. Certain aspects of his skill set - like his defense, and his ability to turn the corner against bigger defenders - showed signs of erosion last year, and if he can't replicate his stunning shooting performance, those cracks could really start to show.

Paul Millsap

Millsap's offensive efficiency - and specifically his long-range shooting - declined over the past two years, and last season also brought a downturn in his rebounding, steal, and block rates. He remains an elite defender and versatile offensive player, but he'll turn 33 this season, and playing alongside Nikola Jokic will saddle him with a heavier defensive burden than playing beside Al Horford or Dwight Howard did.

Millsap's shooting numbers may well tick up this season as he swaps Atlanta's tire fire of an offense for Denver's well-oiled machine, but that should correspond with a reduced role on that side of the floor. His passing skills, defensive instincts, and basketball IQ won't go anywhere, so it should be a soft landing for the four-time All-Star. But this could be the season his overall impact noticeably starts to wane.

James Johnson

Johnson's physical transformation spurred his career-altering season with the Heat, so, for starters, he'll need to maintain that unprecedented conditioning level after his big offseason payday. Consistency has been an issue throughout Johnson's career, and replicating a campaign in which he set career highs in scoring, rebounding, assists, games, minutes, and usage rate is a big ask. More than maybe anything, he'll have to prove that hitting four times as many threes in 2016-17 as he'd hit in any previous season - and hitting them at 34 percent, when he'd previously shot 26.6 percent from long range in his career - was no fluke.

Another thing to consider: Johnson thrived in large part last season because he got to play mostly at the four, and even occasionally at the five in super-small lineups; he defends better closer to the basket, and does more damage as a ball-handler and playmaker when matched up against bigs. But with the offseason addition of Kelly Olynyk and the return of a healthy Justise Winslow, there's a chance those opportunities diminish some in a more crowded Miami frontcourt.

Eric Gordon

Gordon had a great bounce-back season with the Rockets in 2016-17, but there's reason to believe he may be due for a bit of a comedown. For one thing, before last year, the notoriously injury-prone guard hadn't played more than 64 games in any season since his rookie year in 2008-09. He played 75 in his first season with Houston.

He also figures to have some of his responsibilities as a creator stripped with the arrival of Chris Paul. Gordon ranked second in the NBA in catch-and-shoot 3-point attempts last season, but he shot better off the dribble, and scored and distributed effectively off drives. Those opportunities may be harder to come by if he isn't dominating the ball while captaining bench units, and since the Rockets will likely stagger Paul's and James Harden's minutes, Gordon should be playing off the ball a lot more often than during his Sixth Man of the Year campaign.