After Nikola Jovic’s rough season, Heat’s Erik Spoelstra doesn’t want him to have ‘victim mind-set’
Miami Heat forward Nikola Jovic’s fourth NBA season didn’t go as planned.
After averaging career highs in points (10.7 per game), assists (2.8) and minutes (25.1) last season, Jovic expected to take another step forward this season.
The Heat also expected Jovic to continue growing while stepping into an even bigger role after signing him to a four-year, $62.4 million extension last offseason.
“I had him in the lineup on my depth chart board as a starter,” Heat president Pat Riley said of Jovic last week during his annual season-ending news conference.
Instead, the Heat’s skilled 6-foot-10 forward took a step backwards.
Jovic started in the season opener, but didn’t start again for the rest of the season and his production fell off across the board. In fact, Jovic completely fell out of the Heat’s rotation in the final weeks of the season.
“There were a lot of ups and downs this year,” said Jovic, who turns 23 on June 9. “I really thought it was going to be different when things started, but things happen and I just got to be better.”
Jovic averaged just 7.3 points, 3.3 rebounds and 2.2 assists per game while shooting an inefficient 36.6% from the field and 26.9% from three-point range in 47 appearances this regular season. Among the 229 players around the NBA who took at least 160 three-point attempts this regular season, Jovic finished with the league’s second-worst three-point shooting percentage ahead of only Detroit Pistons forward Ronald Holland II (25.3 percent).
“I started the first game of the year,” Jovic said. “After that, I came off the bench. After a few games, my minutes just went down and down more and I just couldn’t find a rhythm.”
Injuries also helped to derail Jovic’s season, as he missed 25 games. He was held out of five games due to a hip injury, four games due to an elbow injury, 11 games due to a lower back injury and five games due to a sprained ankle this season.
Injuries have been an issue for Jovic during his young NBA career, as he has yet to play in more than 47 games during a single regular season.
“It was not easy, especially with the injuries,” said Jovic, who was drafted by the Heat with the 27th overall pick in 2022 out of Serbia. “I feel like that was a big part this year, where I was a lot off the court this year. Sometimes you’re just not lucky with that.”
Jovic also admitted that he struggled to adjust to the Heat’s new-look offense this season, which featured fewer screens, more isolations and operated at the fastest pace in the NBA.
“There are a lot of things that kind of didn’t help me to catch that rhythm that I felt like I needed at one point,” Jovic continued.
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But Heat coach Erik Spoelstra doesn’t want Jovic to spend this offseason finding different things to blame for his rough season. Spoelstra just wants Jovic to do the work necessary to be better next season.
“I think that’s Niko’s objective this offseason, to not have a victim mind-set about it, to not blame anything and just get to work and improve the things that he needs to improve,” Spoelstra said. “Take it on his shoulders and he’ll be just fine. The skill set and the size and all the things that he brings to the table, that’s not lost on any of us. He just needs to get out there, take the responsibility, be ready for camp next year and be ready to reach the potential that he has as a basketball player. What he does fits.”
Jovic plans to focus his offseason work on improving as an off-ball player, especially in catch-and-shoot and catch-and-go situations.
“I just got to make sure my shot is ready every time,” Jovic said. “I think the last two years, I had a good percentage. But especially because I kind of knew which shots I was going to have. This year with the offense we play, you just got to be ready every moment. I got to be ready for that and more for catch and gos. We don’t use post-ups as much, so I guess I won’t have to work on that anymore. Yeah, I just have to change my workouts a little bit.”
The Heat’s hope is that Jovic follows the path of teammate Jaime Jaquez Jr. Jaquez followed up a disappointing sophomore NBA season with a bounce-back year this season, finishing as the runner-up for the league’s Sixth Man of the Year award.
“I think that’s a great parallel, a great comparison for Niko,” Spoelstra said. “Because as frustrated as he seemed this year and he felt like he just had a string of bad luck, that’s exactly what was happening for Jaime last year. Every couple of weeks, Jaime was dealing with something that was putting him out of the rotation in terms of injuries, stomach issues that he had. And then by the time he came back, he hadn’t had enough games and he was totally out of rhythm and then lost confidence. That was Jaime to a T. That was his season last year.
“And then Jaime, to his credit, did not make an excuse for anything. He just took it all on his shoulders and he just said, ‘I need to be better. I’m going to work on getting healthy, getting my body right first and foremost. And then I’m going to work on the specific skill set that I need that will help this team.’ ... It was his intention just to go in and not blame anything, just get to work.”
But Jovic sees more similarities with three-point shooting forward Duncan Robinson’s former Heat situation. Robinson, who is now a member of the Detroit Pistons, was sometimes a fixture in the Heat’s starting lineup and other times completely fell out of the Heat’s rotation.
“I think Duncan is someone who already told me about this and went through similar stuff,” Jovic said, “where at one point you feel like you’re good enough to help the team and then all of a sudden you’re at the end of the bench and you feel like you’re never going to see the floor again. It’s all ups and downs. It’s just the way the Heat is, I guess.”
Jovic wants to have more ups than downs moving forward. The Heat is also hoping Jovic can get back on track, as Riley noted “we still look at Niko as one of our young building guys.”
“You just got to be good every night for them to continue playing you,” said Jovic, whose extension keeps him under contract with the Heat through the 2029-30 season. “The minutes I have, I got to be perfect to get consistent minutes. If I don’t, I’m just going to be at the end of the bench, I guess.”
