Ranking every rotation player for the Denver Nuggets and Miami Heat heading into the 2023 NBA Finals.
The NBA Finals are here! We have a couple of firsts as we head into the start of the NBA Finals on June 1st. The Denver Nuggets are playing in their first-ever NBA Finals, while the Miami Heat is the first-ever 8-seed to make it to the NBA Finals. With such an entertaining series on the horizon, I decided to rank all of the rotation players as we head into the 2023 NBA Finals.
Figuring out which rotation players to include for the Nuggets was far easier than it was for the Heat. Denver has pretty much ran an 8-man rotation for much of the playoffs featuring the same eight players, and has rarely deviated from those players.
Miami on the other hand has done a lot more mixing and matching with their rotation (partly due to injuries and partly due to matchups/performance). I decided to play it safe and include 11 players for the Heat that have been a part of their playoff rotation at some point. I essentially included anyone that realistically *could be* a rotation player in the NBA Finals for the Heat (with health playing a large part in it as well).
Miami won’t play 11 players in every game, but all 11 have been in the rotation for stretches in the playoffs.
Now that we have some of the pragmatism settled, here is my ranking of all of the rotation players in the NBA Finals.