The Miami Heat's 2025-26 NBA season was supposed to be all about the next evolutionary step for fourth-year forward Nikola Jovic. He starred in EuroBasket, spawned a bunch of breakout buzz, and even saw the franchise try to get out ahead of his expected take-off by inking him to a four-year, $62.4 million extension.
But nothing has gone according to plan since. It'd be one thing if he were simply failing to progress, since linear rarely happens on our preferred timeline. What's worrying for the organization, though, is he's actually regressing and backtracking in big ways that could ultimately reshape the hierarchy of the Heat's young core.
Jovic is paid like a building block, but he's not playing like one.
While it's still relatively early into this 82-game marathon, enough time has passed to at least throw up some caution flags.
Jovic should be thriving in Miami's revamped, up-tempo offense. His playmaking, ball-handling, and outside shooting all feel tailor-made for this approach. And they would be if they were living up to their reputation.
None of his skills has translated to this system, though. His shooting rates have significantly slipped from every level. He had a 45.6/37.1/82.8 shooting slash just last season; now, he's toting around an unsightly 40.2/29.4/74.3 line.
While he's technically dropping more dimes than ever (3.1 assists), you can't call him a positive playmaker when he's experiencing turnover trouble like never before. His turnover percentage, which had never before crept above 12.6, has suddenly spiked to 17.6, per Basketball-Reference.
Considering Miami is still awaiting the debut of All-Star guard Tyler Herro, it's no minor miracle the Heat have managed to get out to an 8-6 start in spite of Jovic's struggles. That's a credit to a number of things, head coach Erik Spoelstra's string-pulling and Norman Powell's latest breakout chief among them.
Still, it's obviously not helping for Miami to be getting so much less than expected from Jovic. He was supposed to be the one solving the offensive puzzle. Playing like this, though, he's basically scrambling up the pieces and leaving his teammates to sort them out.
The Heat can only stomach this for so long before raising serious questions about Jovic's long-term role for the franchise. Because while the contract extension at least locks him into the short-term plans, he clearly can't be considered any kind of centerpiece like this.
It would answer a lot of nagging questions if he could ever snap out of this and start having the kind of breakthrough season so many were waiting, hoping, and, frankly, expecting to see. The longer he remains in this funk, though, the harder it will be for the Heat to continue picturing him as a key piece of their future.