Coup’s Notebook Vol. 52: Miami’s First Round Picks Show Off Their Feel For The Game, Nikola Jović Plays Strong Ball And Everyone Works On Their Shooting

After going 1-1 in Sacramento, the Miami HEAT’s Summer League team is about to begin play in Las Vegas. Here’s what we’ve noted and noticed from the young players so far.

FEELING IT OUT

If there’s one thing Miami’s front office has a keen eye for in the draft process, it’s players with a high degree of give-a-****.

If there’s a second thing Miami’s front office tends to have a pretty good sense for in the draft process, it’s players who can play.

That’s not as reductive as it sounds. You can be the greatest athlete in the world. You can have incredible wingspan. You could be an all-world shooter or a lockdown defender. You won’t be able to stay on the court for the most important minutes in the most important games if you don’t have a feel for the game – how to navigate collapsing spaces, where everyone on the floor is and where they’re going to be, which shots are the best shots at any moment in a possession and how to adjust on the fly. There’s been many a great talent over the years that had all the tools, but never became what they could because they just couldn’t play.

Nikola Jović and Jamie Jaquez Jr. shouldn’t have that problem.

“You can teach a lot of things, but the feel of the game is a gift,” says HEAT Summer League head coach Caron Butler. “They have it. They have the feel of the game.”

Sure, it was nice that the pair combined for 43 points on 27 shots in their debut game, shooting 9-of-18 from three across two appearances in Sacramento, but that’s not where you see the feel.

You see it when Jović collects his own miss at the top of the arc on a long bounce and immediately – the catch and the pass all in one motion – fires the ball to an open Orlando Robinson in the paint.

You see it when Jović follows up a driving euro-step with a kickout to the open corner man, and then follows that up a couple minutes later with a baseline spin that leads to him hitting a wing shooter – two different reads made, in traffic, on time and on target at speed.

With Jaquez Jr. – he played just 15 minutes in the second game after a slow, 1-of-6 start with a handful of turnovers – you see it in the way he’s already adjusted to NBA spacing, spinning empty-corner pick-and-rolls into soft lobs for Robinson.

And you can see it that feel in how he follows up his own plays, driving into a kickout read and having the wherewithal to linger around in the dunker spot as the defense rotates away from him.

Nice as it is to see Jaquez Jr. throwing one down in transition or Jović draining straightaway threes – more on those later – it’s these feel plays, coming so early in Jaquez Jr.’s professional career, that offer the most encouragement for their long-term prospects. Erik Spoelstra schemes, on both ends of the floor, require read-and-react proficiency. You have to be able to absorb information, the goals behind the designs, and eventually play off instincts.

Plenty of players can make shots in Summer League. The ones who make it into big-league rotations are the ones who can consistently make plays.

BULKED UP, DOWNHILL

Everyone gets a good laugh when a player says they’ve added 15 pounds of muscle, but Jović wouldn’t have had to say anything for it to be obvious that he’s put in the work on his body. He’s still more T-1000 than T-800 – “You don’t have to be jacked to be strong,” he says – but despite the back injury that limited him for much of last season there’s been a filling out process that is already translating onto the court.

In Jović’s 15 appearances last year, including eight starts, the HEAT kept things mostly simple. His minutes came either at center, where he could focus on rolling hard off screens or popping into space, or at the other big spot, where he was strictly a floor spacer. Miami was trying to compete for a playoff spot and there wasn’t much in-game room for developing on-ball skills.

That’s what Summer League is for.

“It’s really his added weight,” Butler said. “Now he has the confidence to absorb that contact. He’s getting downhill. He can do it either right or left. That’s the beautiful thing about him, if you put him in either slot, he’s going to have the advantage. Even with the weight gain, he’s still so mobile.”

There’s still a bit of a Summer League quality to some of these drives. Defenders not being away of their help rotations in the paint. Loose fouls. Some of the finishes Jović has attempted aren’t going to work against bigger, better defenders – both he and Jaquez Jr. had more trouble against a Kings roster featuring better, more experienced athletes and defenders than the Lakers had for Game 1 – he’ll have to find the spots he’s most comfortable with. That’s all part of the process. Bam Adebayo struggled mightily against length in the paint his first two seasons and now dotted line jumpers might be the premier tool in his kit.

For now, the important part is that with his added strength, Jović feels comfortable putting the ball on the floor and playing into contact. The on-ball skills that pop at 6-foot-10 are going to afford him plenty of opportunities to get downhill. Now he has the strength to start developing his options for when he gets to the bottom.

BARE NECESSITIES

If you want to play for Spoelstra, you have to be able to shoot and you have to be able to defend. Weaker defense from an elite shooter or two can be tolerated because of the impact that skillset has on the offense, but the NBA has evolved to such a place where you can only really survive with a non-shooter at one position – center, more often than not, unless you have a true stretch-five. If you aren’t a reliable shooter, teams aren’t going to guard you in the playoffs and your offense is going to be fighting for clean air.

So far, so good on that Summer League front.

Just about any time you saw Jović during Miami’s run to the NBA Finals last season, he was working with shooting coach Rob Fodor on his shooting mechanics. At times, the exercises and drills he was doing were nearly indecipherable without a proper explanation – one day Jović had to do a full, 360-degree spin on one foot before immediately shooting. Few would describe those drills as cool, but cool doesn’t get you anywhere when you have work to do.

“Most of my misses were short,” Jović said of the past year. “So we were working on my arc and my connection. My stance also. They never told me my shot was bad, there’s always some room to work. I feel it looks a lot better.”

This was the first time in his career – especially with the back injury limiting his contact work – that Jović had so much space to dive into the details of his shot. The results, 5-of-9 over two games, are encouraging not just because of the makes, but the shots – some catch-and-shoot, some off the dribble, some after a reset.

At 32.8 percent, with just one season over 32, Jaquez Jr. wasn’t seen as an elite shooting prospect. The catch-and-shoot and unguarded numbers were good enough – high 30’s, low 40’s – however, that you could see where shedding some of the high-usage, college star shots out of his game could produce low-hanging fruit dividends. Sure, enough, with most of his attempts coming off the catch or in the corners, he’s opened Summer League 4-of-8 from deep. No deep mechanical changes required just yet, just a focus on the fundamentals.

“Keeping my head straight and on target, and shooting with my legs,” he said of his shooting focus. “Making sure I get my hand under the ball, use my legs and hold the follow through.”

Lastly, Orlando Robinson hit 2-of-3 against the Lakers, including one trailing three that was the spitting image of the same shots Spoelstra asked players like Meyers Leonard and Dewayne Dedmon to lean into in the past. Robinson went 0-of-6 from three during the regular season, and only took 18 threes with Sioux Falls, but the intention is clearly there and even if the volume doesn’t reach the necessary levels to play alongside Adebayo, Spoelstra has had plenty of success with low-volume, high-efficiency shooters at the backup spot.

TIDBITS

-Butler noted that while Jamaree Bouyea was expecting to start before the team also signed Dru Smith to a two-way spot, and that Bouyea graciously accepted a bench role afterwards. Now, the two are playing quite a few minutes together, combining for 11 steals over two games.

“They’re just exceptional guys that like playing with each other,” Butler said. “It’s similar to what we had with Kyle [Lowry] and Gabe [Vincent].”

-Jamal Cain didn’t play against the Lakers with an ankle injury, but contributed 17 points on 10 shots off the bench against the Kings Wednesday night, including good defensive minutes in a game where Keegan Murray, a No. 4 pick and starter all season for Sacramento, was otherwise nearly unstoppable on his way to 41 points on 20 shots. As with Haywood Highsmith last year, Cain is a good enough defender that he could earn himself some minutes if he can hit enough open looks.

-Worth noting that as Summer League plays out, teams are now allowed to carry up to three two-way contacts. That may not sound like a huge deal, but little changes like that often have important roster ramifications down the line.