Top 5 Rookie seasons in Miami Heat history, including Dwyane Wade at No. 2

What are the best rookie seasons in Miami Heat history, and does Jaime Jaquez Jr. or Nikola Jovic crack the top five?

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As impressed as I was with Nikola Jovic by the end of last season, if we consider his first 61 games in a Miami Heat uniform, he still doesn’t come close to ranking in the top five of the best rookie seasons in franchise history.

In 61 NBA games, Jovic averaged 7.1 points on 44.3% shooting, 3.7 rebounds and 1.6 assists, with a career VORP (Value Over Replacement Player) of 0.4. He’s good, and I think last season possibly primed him for an even bigger leap… but if we’re talking about the top five rookies in Heat history, he doesn’t crack it.

Thanks to our friends at Stathead, here are the top five rookie seasons in Heat history according to VORP:

1. Sherman Douglas, 1989-90 (2.1 VORP)
2. Dwyane Wade, 2003-04 (1.9)
3. Caron Butler, 2002-03 (1.8)
4. Khalid Reaves, 1994-95 (1.4)
5. Mario Chalmers, 2008-09 (1.0)

Bam Adebayo (0.6), Grant Long (0.5) and Josh Richardson (0.5) are the next five in rookie season VORP. Somewhat surprisingly, Jaime Jaquez Jr. ranked 22nd in VORP (0.1).

Now, VORP isn’t everything, but it’s a good catch-all metric that measures their overall impact. At first blush, I have a hard time putting anyone over D-Wade’s rookie season. After all, Wade helped lead the Heat to a surprising playoff berth and inspired Pat Riley to trade for Shaquille O’Neal a year after taking Wade with the fifth pick in the 2003 draft.

But look at Douglas’ rookie stats next to Wade’s:

Douglas: 14.3 points (49.4 FG%), 7.6 assists, 2.5 rebounds, 1.8 steals in 81 games 

Wade: 16.2 points (46.5 FG%), 4.5 assists, 4.0 rebounds, 1.4 steals in 61 games

VORP takes into account playing time, and Douglas played 344 more minutes than Wade. That, plus the better overall field-goal percentage, gives Douglas the edge. Basketball-reference’s Box Plus-Minus (BPM) normalizes playing time, and under that metric, Douglas and Wade come out to a 1.4 BPM. This could be read as Wade having a stronger overall impact on a per-minute basis.

But part of what makes a rookie season impressive is how much they play. Few rookies are guaranteed minutes, so getting on the court at all is, in and of itself, an achievement.

As a child of the 90s and early 2000s, I won’t be the one to argue that anyone had a better rookie season than Dwyane Wade, but the stats back Sherman Douglas with a strong argument.

The next two are interesting: Butler and Reaves. Both came in (Butler as the 10th pick in the 2002 draft, Reaves as the 12th pick in the 1994 draft) and looked like building blocks from the jump.

Then, both were traded in landmark moves for the franchise. Butler was a part of the 2004 deal that landed Shaquille O’Neal in Miami. And in Pat Riley’s first big move, Reaves was traded for Alonzo Mourning after one season (along with Glen Rice, Matt Geiger and a first-round pick).

Even before checking the stats, there was no doubt that Mario Chalmers had one of the best rookie seasons in franchise history. 

Chalmers became a bit of a punchline during the Big 3 era, but it’s easy to forget that he started all 82 games as a rookie and averaged 10 points, 4.9 assists and 2.0 steals.

The Heat may have struck out with Michael Beasley at the top of the 2008 draft, but they nailed their second-round pick with Chalmers. Even after the Heat tore down the roster in the summer of 2010 to make room for LeBron James and Chris Bosh, Chalmers remained. He went on to win two championships in 2012 and 2013.