Magic 8 Ballers: Early for Their Finals
While the stars have undoubtedly stirred the drink, how have the young guns in the NBA Finals played (or not played) ?
So far, the NBA Finals has been a thoroughly entertaining chess match to watch. Both Michael Malone and Eric Spoelstra have been pressing buttons back and forth, forcing Denver and Miami to adjust and readjust to the minor quirks and crinkles in the games. That’s led to a 3-1 record for the series as it heads back to Denver for a Game 5.
Like most of the NBA Finals before it, the star players in their primes have decided this year's bout. Jimmy Butler, Nikola Jokic, and Jamal Murray are all at or around the peak of their careers, while Bam Adebayo and Michael Porter Jr. are young but at that high level as well.
It’s not every day that a young player can have a pronounced effect on the NBA Finals. For every Magic Johnson starting in place of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Kawhi Leonard D’ing up on Lebron James, there are dozens of others who waved their towels and watched the games with some of the best seats in the house.
It’s worth taking a look at these players, however, as even those who aren’t playing any minutes in the NBA Finals could one day be significant contributors for their teams. While most of the attention is rightfully on the stars and how brightly their shining, here’s a chance to more casually check in on the young players who might one day replace them:
Denver Nuggets
Michael Porter Jr.
The most important “young” player in the NBA Finals, MPJ isn’t a newbie when it comes to playing impactful NBA games. He’s had to battle through a few different back injuries but has also secured a max contract that ties him to the present and future success of the Nuggets in a way that only one other player between the two teams can claim.
Up until the Finals, Porter Jr. was balling out, playing impactful basketball without needing to score. He was contributing on the glass, staying disciplined on defense, and dishing the ball better than before in his career. His play was a great window into what a more team-centric Porter Jr. could look like.
He’s kept playing that way in his four games against Miami, but his scoring has cratered even more to the point that both Bruce Brown and Christian Braun have somewhat leaped over him in the pecking order of the Nuggets. He’s been unable to get anything going from anywhere on the floor, only hitting 3 of his 22 three-pointers at a putrid 13.6% clip.
In some ways, it's more impressive that the Nuggets have soundly smacked around the Heat in two of the games this series with their third scorer unable to hit the broadside of a battleship. To MPJ’s credit, he’s still averaging 7 rebounds a game and has done his best to stay committed to the defensive end, although his personal frustrations with his misses are starting to mount.
If Porter Jr. can find any semblance of a rhythm and start to hit his shots, this series might be over sooner than later. A good shooting night from him would juice Denver’s offense even more and give the Heat a problem they may not be able to solve. Right now, however, all of the positive plays that Porter Jr. provided to get the Nuggets here are on hold and may not arrive before the series is over.
Christian Braun
While MPJ is fading, Braun is shining in a way that few, if any expected him to in the NBA Finals. Braun only averaged 15 minutes and 4.7 points per game in the regular season, following that up with 12 minutes and 3.1 points in the playoffs as Michael Malone shortened his roster and took away some bench minutes.
Importantly, however, Braun had done enough to earn some bench minutes for the Nuggets, who have played basically a 7 man rotation with Nikola Jokic, Jamal Murray, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, MPJ, Aaron Gordon, Bruce Brown, and Jeff Green. The fact that as a rookie Braun was able to play some playoff minutes was helpful just for getting the stars in Denver some rest.
That’s what made his Game 3 explosion so important for the Nuggets. Braun was a pleasant surprise in his 15 minutes in game 2, tallying 6 points, 3 assists, and 3 steals, but that was an appetizer to the masterpiece he cooked up in game 3, where he slashed and shredded the Heat’s defense to the tune of 15 points, 4 boards, an assists and a steal in 19 minutes. Braun was the third-leading scorer for the Nuggets in a must-win game 3 to regain home-court advantage, which is a massive feather in his cap as a first-year player.
While he had a more muted game 4, his combination of athleticism and heady play helped him find pockets of space to crash toward the rim and use his tools to finish over some of the smaller defenders on the Heat.
It’s hard to imagine Braun keeping this up for the rest of the series, as that would represent the continued disappointment of some more valuable Nuggets, but his coming-out party on the NBA’s biggest stage hints at the strong possibility that Braun will be a crucial role player for the rest of Denver’s contending window.
Zeke Nnaji
When he was drafted with the 22nd pick in the 2020 draft, the Nuggets likely envisioned Nnaji developing into a reliable replacement for the type of play they used to get from Paul Millsap. Nnaji came out of Arizona as a reliable mid-range gunner with good size and strength for the power forward position, which was what the team really needed at the time.
To put it bluntly, Nnaji has not delivered. He’s barely been able to carve out a spot for himself in the rotation due to defensive lapses and a lack of positive offensive impacts in his scant minutes. He played a career-high in games this year but played fewer minutes than last year, which doesn’t spell well for his career.
There’s still a window for him to be an impact bench player for the Nuggets, as they still don’t have a reliable backup at either power forward or center. If Nnaji can give them a few buckets a game while holding his own on defense, he could find himself with the same number of minutes as Christian Braun.
Instead, it looks like Nnaji won’t be able to fit in with the Nuggets and may have to start looking for his next NBA home. He still has a handful of marketable tools to advertise to other squads, but the fact that he couldn’t establish himself on a team with a weak bench won’t be helpful for his case.
Peyton Watson
While Zeke Nnaji’s DNPs are symbolic of a cloudy future, Peyton Watson’s are much more understandable: he’s just so dang young. Watson missed a lot of developmental time during the COVID-19 pandemic yet still saw his recruiting stock skyrocket on the way to five-star status and a spot at UCLA.
He didn’t have a great season for the Bruins, as Mick Cronin was in win-now mode with a veteran team and could ill-afford to play Watson, even with his prodigious talent. Even without sufficient minutes, there were a few games where Watson’s great length and talent shone through, including two double-digit scoring games against Cal and Oregon.
If Watson’s situation at UCLA sounds familiar to his current situation with Denver, that’s because it’s virtually the same. Right now, the Nuggets are concerned with putting players on the floor who can help them win a title, not with giving Watson the needed reps and minutes to start to capitalize on his great gifts.
The difference in the NBA is that Watson, having been chosen in the first round, has the security that the team views him as a future building block. He flashed in some garbage games at the end of the season, averaging 8 points on 46.7% shooting from the field across his last five regular season games. If he can have a productive summer, he may give the Nuggets’ short rotation another much-needed reliable bench weapon.
Miami Heat
Tyler Herro
Despite playing for the Miami Heat for only four years, it certainly feels like Tyler Herro has been on the team forever. Credit that to his insane rookie bubble playoff run, where he averaged 16 points on great shooting from deep and provided key rebounds and assists as a lead guard. Since then, Herro has flashed enough future scoring pop to secure a large contract extension in Miami and tie his future to theirs.
That’s what’s made his absence in these playoffs so notable. Herro broke his hand in the first game of the playoffs against Milwaukee while making an ill-advised dive for a loose ball. He’s had to watch the Heat’s miracle run to the Finals from the bench during that time, which makes his place in their pecking order more complicated than it was just a month ago.
During the regular season, Herro led the Heat in minutes per game and three-point percentage of rotation players, while ranking third on the team in scoring. He sure looked like the type of player that could be in consideration to be the third banana to Jimmy Butler and Bam Adebayo.
Now, that future is cloudier, as Miami has succeeded with a cadre of undrafted players in his stead. Some of that is regression to the mean; Max Strus, Duncan Robinson, Gabe Vincent, and Kyle Lowry have all rebounded from awful shooting regular seasons to scorch in the playoffs. Herro’s consistency and ability to create high-quality deep looks for himself don’t get enough credit.
Instead, the fact that Herro is in line to make max money while Miami can theoretically get similar output from a combination of players like Caleb Martin, Strus, and Vincent is what could spell tension between him and the time. There’s still time for him to return to the Finals, which may be tonight, but if he goes into the summer injured, there could be some unforeseen storylines between Herro and Miami that few could’ve predicted before the playoffs.
Nikola Jovic
It’s rare for any team that’s trying to contend for an NBA title to hand out major minutes to a rookie, even if they drafted them in the first round the year before. That’s the case with Nikola Jovic, who the Heat selected with the 27th pick last summer.
Jovic displayed a lot of great mobility on both ends of the floor was a major selling point for him, as he was able to glide into the lane and around the arc to score while keeping his feet moving on the defensive end. To do all of this at 6’10” while only being a teenager gave him a high ceiling to reach in the NBA.
The Heat took him and have taken the slow approach to build up his game in the league. They gave him a spattering of irregular minutes during the regular season at the end of games and gave him some run in the G-League, where he suited up for the Sioux Falls Skyforce for seven games and put up 12.4 points a game on 8.6 shot attempts.
As a just-turned-20-year-old, this was always going to be where Jovic cut his teeth in his early pro years. Even though Miami has a hole at power forward, unless Jovic takes a massive leap, he’ll slot in on the next iteration of this Heat team, which was the team’s plan all along. His muted rookie campaign should neither discourage the team nor him, as he could still be a rotation player in the future for Miami.
Omer Yurtseven
Last year, Omer Yurtseven broke through into the NBA and played 56 games for the Heat in the regular season. He even started 12 of those games, having a solid stretch where he showed enough scoring pop at his size to stay on with the team into the 2022-2023 campaign.
This year, he saw his minutes crater to just 9.6 a game, which isn’t totally his fault. The context of the Heat still similarly affects Yurtseven as it does Jovic, as neither’s development is being prioritized by the team. Sure, it’s great that he was able to step in for Bam Adebayo for a few games, but Adebayo is the team’s franchise center today and tomorrow.
What is abundantly clear between Jovic and Yurtseven is that Yurtseven is much more pro-ready right now and doesn’t belong anywhere near Sioux Falls. In two games this year, Yurtseven averaged 27.5 points a game alongside 13.5 rebounds, 4.0 assists, and a steal a game. That sort of high-level production speaks to being farther ahead on his developmental track than Jovic.
While he’s only played a few minutes at the end of games in the playoffs, Yurtseven figures to be more of a rotation player for the Heat next year. His size, shooting, and skill are good enough to be a backup center to Bam, which the team desperately needs. If he can develop into a real defender, Yurtseven might even get to play some key playoff minutes next year when it really matters.