For better or worse, the Miami Heat's 2025-26 NBA season always figured to be determined by their young core. And in a lot of ways, it has been—just not how anyone expected.
The big leap forward Nikola Jovic was expected to take has yet to materialize. Kel'el Ware, another prime breakout candidate, might be staring at a role reduction. Meanwhile, Jaime Jaquez Jr., the forgotten member of this group, has used Miami's new offensive approach to turn his career around.
Exactly none of this aligns with preseason expectations, but that's that we they play the games, we suppose. The question now is whether all of these surprises should encourage the fanbase or dishearten it.
Miami's young core will still set the ceiling for this season.
Assuming we're still considering the Heat's start to this campaign as promising—the last two outings have not been great—there are ways to spin the slow starts of Jovic and Ware as positives.
If Miami can be competitive without them at their best, how good could this club be if they can turn things around? And that's not just some crossed-fingers blind hope saying that. Given the way they play, they should be fits within the Heat's egalitarian approach on offense.
Jovic is still a jumbo-sized net-shredder and ball-handler. An up-tempo, movement-based offense should (at least in theory) be perfect for his game. And the space all of this off-ball activity creates would, you'd think, give Ware gobs of scoring chances on rim-runs and pops out to the perimeter.
Taking things a step further, a wide-open floor might be the exact thing that Jaquez, who continues to struggle as an outside shooter, needs to hide his biggest weakness.
For the glass-three-quarters-empty crowd, though, this type of thinking would be glossing over major worries.
Development is never linear, after all, so the breakouts everyone hoped to see from Jovic and Ware were never guaranteed. Maybe this is who they'll be all season. And as for Jaquez, there are clear sustainability concerns. He's obviously not going to shoot 63.8 percent from the field all season, and defenses will continue to sag off of him (mucking up his driving and passing lanes in the process) until he gives them a reason not to.
If Jaquez isn't actually this good, and Jovic and Ware are as uninspiring as they appear, this season will go off the rails regardless of how Norman Powell and Tyler Herro perform upon their return.
So, if you're struggling to peg down Miami's fit in an injury-ravaged Eastern Conference, we can't blame you. We also can't give a lot of guidance, since the Heat have already flashed high highs and low lows.
What we can say with relative certainty, though, is that the answer will be found in the young nucleus. It's just too early to say whether that's a good thing or not.