There is no pretense from Erik Spoelstra when it comes to Nikola Jovic.
While it might not have been the same “Who?” reaction many offered on draft night, the Miami Heat coach admittedly needed to get himself up to speed regarding the 19-year-old prospect selected at No. 27 out of Serbia in June.
So Spoelstra listened, learned, and has found himself impressed with how spot on that intel has been from the team’s scouting department.
One element, in particular, already has come to NBA fruition.
“The first thing that jumped out when the scouts had us watch edits on him, I literally had never even heard of him, and it was his passing,” Spoelstra said, with the Heat closing out their preseason Wednesday night against the New Orleans Pelicans at FTX Arena. “He was a ballhandling, passing three-man previously in Europe.”
Another encouraging aspect has been the rebounding of the 6-foot-11 big man.
“I mean he rebounded pretty well over there,” Spoelstra said. “You just don’t know analytically if that translates to the NBA. So I was just kind of open to seeing that.”
Spoelstra then opened a window into how patience has proven particularly prudent.
To a degree, Spoelstra said, the Heat set up Jovic to fail during summer league.
But it was out of those struggles that Jovic may now find a place in the Heat’s rotation sooner than anticipated.
“He never played the four or the five,” Spoelstra said, with Jovic confirming, as the Heat’s scouts noted, that he was almost exclusively a wing in Europe. “So I think that was part of his struggle in summer league, obviously playing a new game and a new environment and everything, but he was also playing two positions that he never even played before.
“But his passing, and just in general for me, I think any young player that knows how to pass and is a willing passer is super unique. All these players coming up, nobody’s really looking to pass. They’re looking to score, looking to put points on the board. I think it’s just a really interesting skill set, when people can see the floor, can see two plays ahead. And he had a lot of that as a young player playing in an adult men’s professional league, he was developing a lot of those habits. So we’re playing him a little bit more as a passing big, which fits right into his skill set.”
Typically, Spoelstra refuses to put a player in a box. But the Heat are loaded on the wing with NBA-proven depth. In the power rotation, this is not quite the case.
So Jovic has stepped up by stepping inside.
“I feel like I’m just playing,” he said. “I don’t feel like I’m playing like center and stuff. I don’t think it looks like it. I’m more outside than inside of the paint on offense. But on defense, I’m more inside, just because of bigger guys. I’m just trying to play the game, and that’s what we try to do, where everybody is positionless. We can do all the things.”
But now the passing angles are different, as the adjustments continue.
“I was more of an outside passer from the pick-and-roll stuff than from the low-post passing,” he said of his time in Europe. “I feel really comfortable there. But our team is doing great stuff with cutting and stuff. It’s easy to find them.
“And now playing five, that’s what Coach wants, so I’m doing what he wants.”
Typically, such finesse-oriented big men had been labeled as “unicorns.” But the NBA now has had so many in recent years in the Kristaps Porzingis mold that they hardly stand as exceptions.
With that comes the expectation to quickly adapt. To this point, that has been the case.
“He’s a quick learner,” Spoelstra said. “So he picks up things faster than I probably anticipated for a kid his age. He’s diligent. He works at it, in pre-practice, after practice, watches film. He takes accountability for his mistakes and he just doesn’t often make the same mistake twice in a row.
“But I think that’s some of the intel that we’ve got from our scouts, that he’s a smart player.”
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