Heat intrigued by first-round pick Nikola Jovic’s potential: ‘He’s tremendously skilled’
Last month, Nikola Jovic was sitting in an FTX Arena seat watching the Miami Heat win a playoff game against the Philadelphia 76ers. He became the newest member of the Heat’s young core a few weeks later.
The Heat selected Jovic with the 27th overall pick in Thursday night’s NBA Draft. The skilled 6-11 and 223-pound Serbian forward, who coincidentally attended Game 5 of the Heat’s second-round series against the 76ers, comes with plenty of upside after turning 19 on June 9.
“We just think this kid is a burgeoning talent that you couldn’t pass up at 27,” Heat president Pat Riley said late Thursday night shortly after the team drafted Jovic. “There were other guys on the board that we liked, but I also think that they were duplicates of what we had. So this is a very unique player. Unique size, unique skills. So that’s where we wanted to go with it.”
Jovic did not go through a predraft workout for the team in Miami because of an injury, but the Heat’s scouts were able to evaluate him one final time at his agency-run pro day in Chicago last month. Each of the Heat’s top scouts also took turns traveling to Europe to watch him play this year.
Among Jovic’s skills that stood out to the Heat’s evaluators were his ball-handling, his passing ability and his shooting all while standing nearly 7-feet tall.
“A guy 6-10 plus that can handle, he’s got that skill set,” said Heat assistant general manager Adam Simon, who was at Jovic’s pro day workout. “He sees the game, he can pass, he can find guys.
“Then the shooting, wherever he shoots, he shoots confidently. There’s never any hesitation. He’s really good off the catch. I think a lot of the times, he shoots off the dribble, that’s probably what hurts his percentages. I think he’s a smart defender. Just needs development like all these guys at this age. But he’s got a base of a skill set.”
Jovic, who features a 7-foot wingspan, played professionally for Mega Basket in the Serbian league last season. He averaged 11.7 points while shooting 42.8 percent from the field, 35.6 percent on threes and 75.4 percent from the foul line, 4.4 rebounds, 3.4 assists to 2.7 turnovers and 0.4 blocks per game in 25 appearances for Mega Basket during the 2021-22 season.
Most scouting reports label Jovic as a “three-level scorer,” and his shot chart backs that up. Of the 236 field goals he attempted last season, 118 were twos and 118 were threes.
Jovic made his Serbian National Team debut as an 18-year old and recorded 13 points, seven rebounds and three assists in a FIBA World Cup qualifying game against Slovakia in February. He also helped Serbia finish fourth in the FIBA Under-19 World Cup last summer, as he was named to the All-Tournament team alongside other top prospects such as Chet Holmgren and Jaden Ivey, and the 2023 No. 1 pick favorite Victor Wembanyama.
“The thing that impressed us the most at that time was the fact that he has great size, he has great length, he has great skills, he’s young and he’s going to get better,” Riley said of Jovic. “How we play, switching all the time, we’re sort of this positionless basketball. He has the ability to do those things. So that’s how we see him. How he develops will determine whether or not he really develops into the kind of player that we think he can be.”
Jovic, who was born in England and moved to Serbia when he was 9 years old, grew up playing water polo and did not begin playing basketball competitively until he was 13. That’s one of the reasons he wasn’t considered a top prospect until he opened eyes at the Adidas Next Generation Tournament Belgrade in March of 2021, where he averaged 29.3 points, 10.3 rebounds, 4.5 assists and 1.8 blocks per game to help his team win the championship.
“He’s a threat to shoot. If you’re going to guard him, he’s able to put the ball on the floor and beat guys,” Simon said of what makes Jovic such an intriguing offensive talent. “So if you give him space, he’s got a quick shot and he’s not afraid to pull it. But if you close out on him hard, yeah that’s why he’s got that versatility of not just being a catch-and-shoot guy.
“I think we’re going to be able to develop that, to be able to read to shoot off the catch or take guys off the dribble. All the clips we’ve seen of him, he’s attacking and he’s able to maneuver and get to the basket. That’s what we liked about him.”
Jovic, who will wear No. 5 with the Heat, is slotted to make about $2.2 million next season as the 27th pick and will be under team control for five seasons.
Jovic joins a young Heat core anchored by 24-year-old center Bam Adebayo and 22-year-old guard Tyler Herro. Adebayo and Herro were able to find consistent roles as rookies, but it remains to be seen whether Jovic will be able to do the same this upcoming season for a team that’s in win-now mode after finishing just one win short of reaching the NBA Finals this past season.
Riley called Jovic “a developmental player,” but Jovic believes he can help the Heat immediately.
“I think if I get in a game right now, I’m sure I’m going to help the team,” Jovic said during a call with reporters on Thursday night after he was drafted by the Heat.Me “Something I can translate to the game I think is my spot-up shooting. I think I’m a really good spot-up shooter. My passing vision, I think I’m really good with. And I think what a lot of people don’t see is I improved on defense a lot. I’m a big guard who can switch on almost everything. So I think soon I’ll be a really good defender. But things that can translate immediately for sure is my shot, my passing skills and basketball IQ.”
There’s definitely a need for Jovic on the Heat’s roster as a stretch four who can serve as the ball handler and screener in pick-and-rolls while having the ability to knock down outside shots and attack the basket off the dribble. Starting power forward P.J. Tucker and reserve forward Caleb Martin are among the Heat’s impending free agents this offseason.
“We don’t know,” Simon said when asked if Jovic can make an immediate impact as a rookie. “The whole draft is full of developmental players. They’re so young. But he’s advanced in that sense. But any player that comes into the NBA needs development. So we’ll see. We’ll see when we get him up here over the summer and go from there. We’ll see what he needs to work on. Then it probably depends on what our roster looks like next year.”
Jovic is the only player the Heat added in this year’s draft, as Miami was forced to forfeit this year’s second-round selection as a result of the NBA’s investigation into last offseason’s sign-and-trade acquisition of Kyle Lowry.
Next up for Jovic is his Heat introductory news conference in Miami, which is expected to be held early next week. Then he’s expected to take part in summer league with the Heat in San Francisco and Las Vegas, with the team scheduled to travel to the West Coast on Tuesday to begin summer league practices.
Whatever happens in the coming months and years, though, Jovic has already broken the mold.
Jovic is only the second first-round pick kept by the Heat in franchise history who played his previous season overseas. The other was Martin Muursepp, who was the 25th overall pick in in the 1996 draft and went on to play just 83 games in the NBA and 10 for the Heat.
“He’s got 6-10 size, he’s long, he can handle the ball, he’s tremendously skilled,” Riley said. “So we’ll see where he goes from here. We feel like we got a very good pick at that number.”
This story was originally published June 24, 2022 at 12:41 PM.
