The Miami Heat will enter the 2025-26 NBA season in a strange spot. They might have enough win-now talent to make noise in the wide-open Eastern Conference, but they also have a young core they need to nurture. And, remember, they're doing all of this while carefully managing their finances to potentially allow for fortune-changing additions down the road.
It all makes for a rather tricky developmental environment, as this club could never get on the same page last season. And yet, it's an environment in which Nikola Jović must thrive, because it's now or never to convince the front office he's worth keeping around.
While he's eligible for an extension this offseason, he might want to wager on himself, since he has yet to engineer a breakout campaign. If he did go that route, where should he set the bar for a successful season? That's a great question.
Jović must establish himself as a regular and reliable part of the rotation.
It's tempting to set the pass-fail bar at Jović snagging a starting lineup, but that possibility likely evaporated once Miami leaned into the Bam Adebayo-Kel'el Ware frontcourt last season. If the Heat stick Andrew Wiggins at the 3 and opts for a Tyler Herro-Norman Powell starting backcourt, this opening group might already be set.
And that's fine for Jović. His unique offensive abilities might shine better off the bench, anyway, since Miami could handle him more like a featured player when he's surrounded by reserves.
Those offensive abilities have already perked up plenty over the past couple of seasons. Since the start of the 2023-24 campaign, he has converted 45.4 percent of his field goals and 38.3 percent of his long-range looks. His per-36-minute stats also show solid support scoring (14.8 points) and a big enough gap between his assists (3.9) and turnovers (1.8) to picture him slotting in as a secondary playmaker, per Basketball-Reference.
His shooting and shot-making set a baseline for him serving as a 6'10" stretch big, but his flashes of creation and playmaking are what could really skyrocket his ceiling. Finesse scorers who can't defend offer limited value in today's NBA. Add legitimate ball skills and passing vision to the equation, though, and suddenly you have a pretty coveted archetype.
That should be the standard for Jović this season: consistently displaying a well-rounded offensive arsenal while serving as a sixth or seventh man in the rotation. While it would be great to see some defensive growth, the more realistic hope should be that he's so valuable on offense that it almost doesn't matter what he does on the opposite end.
Jović's place in the franchise's long-term future feels a bit murky right now. A successful season should make keeping him around for the long haul a no-brainer.