We Need To Talk About Nikola Jović Right Now 💬

We Need To Talk About Nikola Jović Right Now 💬

What young Heat player is the story of preseason so far? Let’s talk about it, but only after Good morning, good afternoon, good evening. Welcome back to After the Buzzer. I am your host, Cooper Morhead. Thank you for joining us here on YouTube. It’s great to be back with you. It’s great to be back to basketball. And today we’re going to talk about one man and one man only, and that is Nicola Yoic. Now, it feels like Nico has been with the team for a while, but he’s only in year four. He’s only 22 years old. He’s only played in 107 games, so you know, due to some injuries. So, we’re still relatively early in his developmental curve experience-wise. And a lot of times you see guys make a step forward, a leap forward, whatever type of motion forward you want to talk about. A lot of times that happens in year three or four. We’re in year four, but the experience, like we just said, still pretty young. So, he’s got a lot long he’s got a lot of room for growth still. But I think we’re seeing something in preseason. We’re seeing something very encouraging from Nico. And development is the key word here because no doubt Nico has gotten stronger. He’s more physical than he used to be. His drives are more efficient. He’s driving more often. His rookie year, he drove to the rim 12 times and he got zero points out of all that. Last year, he was driving over eight times per 100 possessions and he I’m going to guess that’s going to go up a little bit more this year. His defense has improved. His shot selection is getting better. that the game is slowing down for him, which is letting him get to my favorite skill of his, which is his passing vision, his playmaking. Just like we spoke about when the team drafted Casper’s Yakonis over the summer, passing, playmaking, advanced passing is a big area where the team, you know, has room for growth and growth in that area would cause probably a a big significant boost in the offense that the team is trying to get to. Again, they’re they’ve been a bottom third offense for a while. They’re trying to find another level on that end. And Yoic can be a really big part of taking that leap forward because he can make advanced passes. He’s got the size clearly, but he’s also got the touch. He’s got the vision. He can make those long hook passes to the corner. He can drive. He can make a skip pass over the top of the defense. He can make advanced reads. And that can just play such a huge role in a team finding another gear offensively both in the half court and in transition as we will get to. Eric Spoler has also talked about Nico needing to improve his rebounding but that’s coming along as well. We’ve seen the rebound numbers go up a little bit in preseason. We’ve seen him grabbing the ball, grabbing going, pushing up the court and that’s what we’re getting to because we’re seeing the development. The team is seeing seeing the development clearly because they gave him a contract extension, but this also isn’t just about Nico. It’s not just about his own development inside of, you know, one role that a coach is asking him to play. It’s about what Nico’s development can mean to the team and the way they want to play. And we know this team wants to play faster. Spo hasn’t really been shy about saying that. The team hasn’t been shy about talking about they want to play faster. They want to get to what is the best offensive style for this roster. They’ve got a lot of young guys. They’ve got a lot of athleticism. They’ve got the the tools to play faster even though they’ve typically been a bottom five 10 team in pace, you know, in recent years. And there’s many ways to measure pace. You can just do possessions per game. That’s the typical pace, you know, metric. But it’s also about how fast you cross half court, how quickly you’re running your actions, your pick and rolls, your second side mo um actions, how quickly guys are making cut reads, how quickly the passes are hitting those guys, how often you’re up against the shot clock, which has been an issue at times for Miami in the past. It’s not just about adding transition opportunities and transition volume. It’s about adding, you know, efficient offense everywhere you go. And for this roster, speed can help them do that. And they are doing that so far in preseason. It’s two games. Not going to read too much into it, but because it’s, you know, clearly a philosophical thing going on with the team, a focus, I think we can say that the team playing faster in this preseason by the numbers than any preseason they have in the past is a significant thing so far. And that’s even without most of their guards available. They’ve had most they’ve had Tyler out, DaVon’s out, Casper hasn’t played, Terry hasn’t played. You know, they’ve been missing guards. And granted, most teams want to come into camp and play faster. A coach saying he wants his team to play faster is the same, you know, as a guy on Muscle Watch coming into media day saying he had 15 pounds of muscle. You hear it a lot on media day and in preseason. And, you know, you you just need to see actions over words when it comes to wanting to play faster. So, it’s not an uncommon point of focus for a coach and it’s just as common for teams that are trying to do this, that are trying to shift into a higher gear, you know, offensively in terms of speed. It’s pretty common that you they see them play fast in the preseason, then they get to the regular season and things slow down pretty quickly. That’s happened to the Heat in the past. It happened to them last year. They were playing pretty quick in preseason last year. They were one of the top top 10 teams in preseason pace. Then they got to the regular season. that’ll change because they start playing a slower pace. So, it doesn’t always stick. You can’t just decide to play fast and magically that’s going to happen. It takes real work. It takes real focus. And most importantly, it takes the players. You need players that can play fast in order to play fast. I know it’s not rocket science, but it’s hard to make guys fit styles that’s not appropriate to them. That’s where Nico comes into this whole thing because I think Nico fits that style really, really well. He’s to me at least, he’s one of those guys that can keep a team playing with pace once you get into December and January. He can be one of the engines of the team and engine. Not the engine, as Eric Spoler corrected me in a press conference recently, and engine. You need hit ahead passes. You need grab and goes, you need bust outs. You need speed, aggression, you need to run, but you also need to make the right passes. And again, Nico can make all the right passes. He can make the tough passes. He’s already in preseason, we’re seeing him grab the ball, turn quick, either put the ball on the deck and start pushing pace or he’s finding guys that are running out and throwing those hit aheads. Or he’s doing the thing m he’s in between. He’s pushing the ball at half court getting everybody running with him with speed and then he’s finding those guys with his vision. a lob here, corner three there. He’s really, I wouldn’t call it orchestrating the offense in the way a point guard would, but he’s using his skill set to push the team forward into what they’re trying to do. And I’ve loved it so far. It’s been really fun to watch. Again, this none of this is a small thing. It’s one thing to be developing in your role as a young guy. And when you’re young, you know, a lot of us think of, you know, just be better, be a better version of yourself every single year, but it’s another thing to be developing into a role that will play a major factor in the style of a team. That happens. You know, if you have, say, a number one draft pick, a guy who’s an all-star in his first year or something like that, yeah, the team is going to start playing their style. But for Nico, it’s very unique because, you know, he’s trying to develop into a role. But that specific role will have a huge impact on the way this team can play if everything goes according to how we’re seeing it so far. And, you know, that’s no small thing either. It’s got to keep going. Nico can be, you know, very good in this role that that they’re playing with. And nobody wants to put too much of a burden on him. You know, Swer hasn’t wanted to. The team hasn’t. The players know Bam. They’re not trying to put too much pressure on him, even though they clearly see what he can do. But Spo is also telling us something with his actions by starting Nico in the starting lineup for the first couple preseason games after, you know, Kell wear and bam, that front court pairing finished out most of last the second half of last season where the defense was pretty good. Offensive side of the ball needed a little work. It was a little, you know, numbers weren’t great all the time, even though there were signs at times until the playoffs and then nothing really worked much in that series. So, we’re seeing how important he can be. We’re being told how important he can be because he’s starting, even though, of course, we need to see that in the regular season as with all this. But, it feels like the thing, the storyline is just developing. It’s not it’s not just about Nico, it’s about the team and it’s about what Nico can do for the team. And there’s caveats. We always have to have caveats in preseason. We’re not going to get too far ahead of ourselves. We need to see it in the regular season. We need to see it for more than a few weeks. You can’t just add transition for the sake of transition. You have to be efficient with it. That’s another thing the Heat will have to improve on in recent years. It’s a different roster, of course, but they haven’t always been efficient with the transition opportunities they get. So, you’ve got to be efficient. You’ve got to add the the volume on top of it and then put it all together. see what you get and see how that all affects your half court offense. Because if you’re playing with speed regularly and getting the ball up, how does that get into half court offense better? So then you’re not playing up against the clock and having to take tough shots with, you know, four or five seconds left on the shot clock. And again, we’re not going to get ahead of ourselves. Don’t want to put too much pressure on Nico. I know this is a lot and we’re all very excited, but let’s just, you know, we don’t have to jump from he’s he’s a role player doing all doing all these good things and then say, “Oh, he’s got to be the next all-star or anything like that.” We don’t need to do that for him, okay? We don’t need to do that. Let’s just let this be what it is. Let him be good. Let him be important. Let’s see where it goes. Because if if the preseason is any indication so far, Nico is good. He is important. And the story of the preseason oftentimes ends up being one of the defining stories of the entire season for the team in question. I’m excited. I think Nico has been first of all, well, last of all, one of the nicest guys on team, very friendly. He’s been great to be around. I think it’s hard not to be around him and and want to see good things for him. He’s clearly put in the work. He’s earning his opportunities. He’s making the most of his opportunities. and he could change the way the Heat play on offense if he keeps playing like this. We will see where this all goes. It’s going to be a storyline for a while and we will follow it every step of the way. But until then, I’d like you to check out this interview we did with Nicole Yovic on media day for our YouTube live stream for a little bit more info on his approach to this season and the offseason that he had playing at Euro Basket for Serbia. In the meantime, also make sure to sub on YouTube for all notifications for future content, future videos we put up, including podcasts. We’ve got podcasts now. Check out the one we have up on with DaVon Mitchell. It’s one of the favorite conversations I’ve had in quite some time. So, please check that one out. We’ve got more podcasts coming up soon. And until then, I’ll see you when I see you. Enjoy this interview with Nicole Yovich. Thanks for coming back, man. It’s great to see you, sir. How are you, man? I’ll let you guys know that Nico will always say hi to everybody in every room. This is one of the the nicest guys in the league and we’re happy to have him. Um, thank you. You know, your basket probably didn’t result in the it wasn’t the result that you as a team wanted to achieve, but I’m curious as to now that you’ve had some time to take a step back and think about the whole experience. What did you think of the experience and what did you personally take away from from the tournament? I mean, you know, we we didn’t get where we wanted to be. you know, we really uh everybody set the goal, you know, to get the gold medal and everything and uh I think it it got over our head, you know, we we kind of everything, you know, things didn’t figure out for us, you know, but um the Euro basketball was really important for me. uh especially coming off of injury last season to get some games in and you know kind of uh sell things up and you know get some game reps back and uh uh especially playing with the you know one of the better competitions and uh playing in a team with the best player in the league right now and it was it was really important for me. I think I learned a lot. Uh uh so yeah. So, we are taking some fan questions because we’re live on YouTube and we’ve got one from Crimson 8K and they want to know as part of your basket, what parts of your game were you working on specifically? Uh I mean I just the the feel like most important thing for me uh basketball was uh just perfecting the things I’m good at. You know uh the transition my three-point shot you know the low post uh uh you know attacking smaller defenders. I think those stuff was you know really important for me and uh I felt like I got to perfect them. Uh, I didn’t work on pull-up twos and some crazy step back threes because, you know, realistically, you know, I’m I’m just not going to do it. Uh, spo approved. Yeah, there. I mean, that’s just how the game works, you know. Uh, I’m never going to be uh Norm, you know, and never going to do the same stuff that Norma does, but, you know, I’m going to be me and do stuff that I I know I can do and I can be good at. So, you know, just perfecting those things was the most important thing for me. It’s amazing that it’s year four. You already, man, it feels like you were drafted just yesterday. Does it feel different? Do you feel like almost a vet now? Like you’re you’ve experienced all this a few times. No, no, no. I still I still feel pretty young, you know. I mean, I am Yeah. You know, 22 I would say that’s pretty young, but uh I feel like, you know, it feels different. You know, I wouldn’t say I feel I feel old, but you know, I feel like I’m a little older. You know, it’s been four years. It’s It’s really insane. Yeah. Well, there’s nothing It’s almost in a way you might not be old, but a lot of things aren’t going to take you by surprise anymore, right? Yeah. Not everything I feel like know how things work. You know, I know what to expect on a media day, you know. So, that matters a lot, right? Um, so you mentioned a little bit, but injuries have gotten in your way a little bit over the past couple years, but you have had flashes, really long stretches of sustained really great play. So, I’m curious is the the those stretches that you’ve had, do you feel like they’ve been enough to figure out your role not just on the team, but the like your pathway to success in the league? talked about just figuring out what your game is going to be. Yeah, I I mean I think they do. You know, I think it’s pretty simple to, you know, when you talk about me to know what I’m going to bring to the table. Uh can I do more? Probably. Do I have to show it? Of course. Uh but I think it’s pretty obvious what I bring to the table at this point right now. Uh so you know hopefully you know our team understands it and they know exactly you know how uh how they look at me you know but uh yeah hopefully we’ll figure everything out and I’m going to have the uh a role that you know suits me and suits the team good enough. Does starting bench does that matter to you or is it just make sure you get the minutes? Yeah, it matters a lot to me you know because I feel like everybody want to be a starter. Did I play better off the bench last year? Yeah, I did. But uh uh it’s all about you know matchups, lineups, you know, stuff. So, but still I want to be a starter no matter what. I think that’s the most important thing for me. So, we’ve got one more fan question coming in. This is from Brendan David and we’ll finish with this. He just wants to know simply how is it like playing alongside Mr. Joic. Uh unbelievable, you know. Uh best I mean he he’s the best player in the world for me, you know. Uh you can argue if it’s him, whoever you know I mean Shay had unbelievable sin and everything you know for me you know he’s he’s the best player in the world. Uh someone who just understands the basketball you know and uh a lot of people ask like what can you learn from that what kind of move you can’t really do what he does in terms of moves but what what he can help you with is understand the game of basketball you know kind of easier. Mhm. Uh he makes it look pretty easy because he does the the the kind of simple stuff. He does them perfectly, you know, the the stuff they you always do. He does them really good and he knows what he got to do. He gets to his, you know, spots. He he uh sees everything on the court. It was just unbelievable. I mean, as you saw, you know, I had so many easy looks and so many uh easy baskets just because of of him. And uh it was a it was really a pleasure, you know, uh playing with him. I can just imagine how how it is playing a full season with him. You know, you you got to be you can make passes other people just can’t. Well, man, it was great to see you. Pleasure. Thank you for joining us.

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HEAT Insider Couper Moorhead shares his key observations on what exactly everyone should expect from Nikola Jović heading into the 2025-26 season.

Questions for Coup about your favorite basketball team? Drop ’em in the comments below 💬

0:00 Introduction
0:30 We’re Seeing Something Encouraging
2:41 How The Team Wants To Play
8:00 No Pressure, Niko
10:54 1-On-1 With Nikola Jović (2025 HEAT Media Day)

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