1. Jović was born in Leicester, England. His father, Ilija Jovic, was playing basketball there. When Nikola was nine years old, the family moved to Belgrade where Nikola first trained in water polo. He didn’t begin playing basketball seriously until he was 13 and originally played guard before a growth spurt took him to just under 6-foot-11. At 19 years and 14 days old as of the night of the draft, Pat Riley called him “one of the youngest players we’ve ever drafted”.
“Anybody we were going to draft was probably going to be a development player or a younger player,” Riley said.
“We just think this kid is a burgeoning talent that you couldn’t pass up at 27.”
Riley noted that when it came time for them to pick, Jovic was the highest rated player on their board and they stayed true to that.
2. He spent last year playing in the Adriatic League. Jovic averaged 11.7 points – second on the team – 4.4 rebounds and 3.4 assists in 27.8 minutes per game for Mega Bemax on 9.4 shots, topping 20 points three times.
“That’s a type of development team,” said HEAT Assistant GM Adam Simon. “There’s a lot of guys that are in the NBA that have come through that program. They like to mix-in a couple of vets with their top prospects. Usually if a player is going to be an NBA prospect, they make sure that player gets opportunity.”
Known as the ABA for short, the Adriatic League has a relatively long history of future NBA players, including but not limited to:
Aron Baynes, Jusuf Nurkić, Bojan Bogdanović, Dario Sarić, Dāvis Bertāns, Nikola Peković, Nemanja Bjelica, Bogdan Bogdanović, Boban Marjanović, Nikola Jokić and, of course, Goran Dragič.
“I played against grown men,” Jovic said. “I think that’s what helped me the most. It was really tough there.”
3. He was named to the All-Tournament Team in the 2021 FIBA U19 World Cup. Scoring 18.1 points per game, Jovic was joined on the honorary team by 2022 lottery picks Jaden Ivey and Chet Holmgren, projected 2023 No. 1 pick Victor Wembanyama and Purdue’s Zach Edey.
“He obviously was really good there,” Simon said. “He was really impressive for a kid who physically is maturing into his body. He’s got good strong shoulders that he’s going to grow into. We saw him there and then he was a priority guy to see this year and we all took turns going over to see him.”
4. He can shoot. While he only shot 35.6 percent on threes last season, it was on solid volume at nearly five attempts. If we’re to play amateur Shot Dr. for a moment, he does a great job consistently getting his feet underneath him off of movement and he has a quick, fluid motion. There wasn’t much film available on him running off of screens as the HEAT would use Max Strus or Duncan Robinson, but he relocates well off the ball, can pump fake a defender and sidestep to stay behind the line and can get to his shot off of a variety of dribble moves, creating good separation with stepbacks while staying under control. He doesn’t quite have Tyler Herro’s dancer feet given his size, but his shot diet was in that mold. Per Synergy, he produced 1.15 points per possessions in spot-up situations.
“I think I’m a really good spot-up shooter,” Jovic said.
“Wherever he shoots he shoots confidently,” Simon said. “There’s never any hesitation. He’s really good off the catch. A lot of the time he shoots off the dribble which is probably what hurts his percentages. He was asked to do a lot on that Mega team.”
Overall his field-goal percentage was 42.8 percent largely because of his efficiency inside the arc. According to The Athletic’s Sam Vecenie’s Draft Guide, he shot 25 percent on mid-range jumpers and just a tick over 50 percent at the rim despite some impressive finishes in traffic. Those are numbers you might flag if he was an older player, but given his age and the fact that he was playing in a professional league, his clear ability to create shots for himself should be taken as a sign of potential rather than a knock against him. How his dribble combinations and efficiency translates to the NBA game, only time will tell, but at the very least he’s going to be able to shoot over the top of a lot of players. There isn’t much of a post-game yet – he had 22 post possessions at 0.41 points per – but against a switch he’ll be able to rise up over just about any guard in the league.
5. He can pass. This is the first separating skill that, along with his open-floor athleticism, distinguishes Jovic from other similarly sized shooters. We don’t have any fancy tracking data for the Adriatic League, but watching his assists there’s clearly a degree of vision that is uncommon for players of his size. He sees where players are going to get open on the break, can throw a lob on the move and, perhaps most important for how the HEAT or most any NBA spaces the floor, he can skip the ball over the top of the defense to find weakside shooters. They aren’t prescribed or system passes, either. He’s creative, and he sees passes before his targets are even fully open. If he draws a smaller player and earns a double team – something the HEAT’s current roster doesn’t often do – he has the necessary ability to find the spaces unoccupied by defenders and deliver passes on time and on target.
He did turn the ball over, 2.7 a game to those 3.4 assists, but that’s to be expected of someone his age. As long as you avoid the temptation to compare him to fellow Mega alum Nikola Jokic – maybe one of the five best passers in the history of the sport – there’s a lot to like even when the result isn’t perfect.
“He sees the game. He can pass,” Simon said. “He can find guys . . . he has the ability to make plays and we like that about him.”
6. He can handle. This is the second separating skill. Being able to pass and shoot only matters so much if you can’t do anything with the ball. The handle ties everything together.
There were moments where he dribbled into a crowd or too close to a help defender and got stripped, but that was happening to All-Star players in the playoffs, too. Like most things, that’ll be a learning process. The most important thing for now is that he shouldn’t, long term, be the type of player who can be taken out of a possession by a pressuring defense. He can work himself out of a jam and should be able to run some actions rather than rely entirely on being set up by others.
“I think he can just play,” Riley said. “Whether or not he’s a pick-and-roll player, he’s a catch-and-shoot player, he’s a runner, he’s a fastbreak player, he can run offense for you.”
7. The defense will need work. As it does for most 19-year olds. This isn’t an area that’s easy to evaluate with one night to go over tape, but most scouting reports highlighted this area in the Weaknesses section. Common critiques noted a lack of strength – something the HEAT will be able to help with, especially given that he has a solid frame to grow into – and quickness, particularly with lateral mobility. There’s going to be a bit of wait and see here given the level of offensive talent he’s about to encounter, but long term being able to switch is always going to be a key skill in a system built around the talents of Bam Adebayo.
“The whole defensive disposition first has to come in your mind and in your heart,” Riley said. “It’s about the amount of effort and technique. We’ll find out what kind of a defensive player that he is. But he’s got great length and we’ll work very hard with him. All those players that are 19, 20 years old are never great defenders until they’re taught to play defense in the NBA. But I think the kid is athletic enough and quick enough, long enough to be able to play defense the way that we want.
“Individually, we’ll see. They’ll probably pick on him like they pick on everyone else, and then you’ll learn how to guard guys.”
To his credit, Jovic made a point to bring up that side of the ball on his own.
“What a lot of people don’t see is I’ve improved on defense a lot,” Jovic said. “I’m trying to be a big guard who can switch almost everything. Soon I’ll be a really good defender.”
8. He did not work out in Miami. He was scheduled to make the trip, but an injury scrapped those plans. The HEAT did see him at an Excel Sports Management pro day for their clients in Chicago, and Miami’s draft leaders took turns flying over to see him in Europe. Simon said Jovic has been on their radar for a couple of years.
9. He attended Game 5 against the Philadelphia 76ers in Miami. We didn’t get a chance to clarify, but it was either the first NBA game he had attended or the first HEAT game. Speaking to his familiarity with the team, Jovic noted how many players on the roster are undrafted or had played in the G-League.
“I think I know almost every player on the team,” Jovic said. “I think I will fit in perfectly. They have a lot of veterans so I’m sure I will learn a lot from them.”
10. He is the first international player without US collegiate experience acquired and kept by HEAT in the NBA Draft since Martin Müürsepp (Estonia) in 1996.
“All of the competition internationally, whether it’s in Europe of wherever the players come from, the quality of competition has really gone up,” Riley said. “He’s played against some really good teams, he’s played against a lot of good players, he’s been coached very well.
“If a player can play, I don’t care where he comes from.”