The Miami Heat's decision to give Nikola Jovic a premature contract extension (4 years, $63 million) is looking like one big disaster. However, there may be a chance that an upcoming expansion NBA draft could help save the Heat from that self-imposed misstep.
Even though he's been a disappointing player for the Heat this season, Jovic is still young and could emerge as an appealing prospect for an expansion team. Plus, there's always a chance the Heat could offer some future draft capital to help entice one of the expansion teams to take a flier on Jovic in a draft.
It's happened in the past, and there's some precedent to that idea.
How an NBA Expansion draft would work
The NBA announced recently that the league will vote to move forward with expansion teams in Las Vegas and Seattle.
In an expansion draft, the new franchises will be able to select teams from existing rosters to build their own. Each established NBA team will have the potential to protect up to eight players, leaving the rest open to be drafted.
The new franchise will be able to select a total of 15 players, but will not be able to select more than one per team. They would then take on their contract moving forward.
And that's what could appease the Heat, especially when it comes to Jovic. Theoretically speaking, Jovic would almost certainly be one of the players that the Heat wouldn't "protect." Even though an expansion draft wouldn't happen right now, you can project that Miami would likely choose to save Tyler Herro, Bam Adebayo, Pelle Larsson, Andrew Wiggins, Kasparas Jakucionis, Ke'el Ware, Norman Powell, and Jaime Jaquez Jr.
That could change a year from now, but it's hard to envision how Jovic is going to climb into that top 8 for Miami.
Why Nikola Jovic may need a fresh start
And, at this point, there's reason to believe that Jovic needs a fresh start. He hasn't had a great start to his Heat career and seemingly took a bit of a step back this season in Miami's new offensive system.
I can't imagine that the Heat would want to give up on the development of Jovic, but he could benefit from a new start. And, just maybe, perhaps one expansion team believes that they could get the best version of Jovic.
He's an extremely talented player on paper; he just hasn't seemed to be able to put it all together thus far. And maybe a new environment is exactly what he needs. Similarly, it may also not be something the Heat are that opposed to, especially with how regretful they may be after giving him an early contract extension.