Miami Heat: Nikola Jovic, possible starter going forward? | Five on the Floor

Miami Heat: Nikola Jovic, possible starter going forward? | Five on the Floor

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Trust this have the guts we here to bring the heat y’all can hang it up welcome to five on the floor a daily Insider show on the Miami Heat and the NBA featuring Ethan scholet Greg sander and Alex Toledo plus others from the five reasons Sports Network welcome back to five on the

Floor here’s today’s floor plan I’m Ethan skull you can follow me Ethan J skck and five re and sports we got Alex too you can follow my tropical blanket and Brady Hawk you can follow him at Brady Hawk 305 today we’re going to devote an episode to Nico yic make sure

That you check out the episode that Greg slander did after the Heat’s win against the Rockets he did it with Shawn Rochester and Brian fona but last night everybody was talking about yic including Kevin Love and Tyler hero here’s my question to Kevin Love in the locker room and then Brady Hawks to

Tyler hero in the interview room his body language is bad but he gets upset about missing shots but you see he adds so much more to the game he’s rebounding he’s pushing the ball he’s getting out in transition he’s finding guys he might not get the assists although he had about five or

Six tonight but he’s getting he’s rebounding the ball at a very high rate he’s getting downhill he’s making guys come in him he’s spraying that those type of plays reminds me of a guy I mean kind of like LeBron way with his size um obviously a different beast but again

He’s only 20 years old so you don’t really know what uh you know his ceiling is um and we don’t want to put his ceiling on him because he just continues to get better continues to work and like you said you saw it tonight he’s very comfortable he seems especially

Comfortable in transition tell yeah and I think that’s where he’s at his best even in the uh you know the half court as well he uh you know I think he’s finding the spots where he can be uh most effective and you just love to see the more comfortable he gets the more

Minutes he gets he’s only going to continue to get better and I know that you know he’s a locker room favorite he’s a fan favorite but I think he uh again it’s the just being out there with us and uh you know getting his feet on the floor seeing more minutes and you

Know he’s worked for those opportunities Tyler you had the one pull up three on the break where Nico found you I guess just how much do you like his style when he’s just able to kind of get out and play like that and just what

Was his impact tonight no I love Nico I told Nico I’m starting the uh Nico yic um fan club led by Tyler hero um I just love the way he plays and he’s so skilled I think I I really think he’s really really good um so I’m excited for

Him to to get out there and um you know just continuing to build on the Menace and the opportunity he’s got all right welcome back here so sorry about low volume on the Kevin Love interview that’s kind of the I tried to sneak in a question before the cameras

Came and so Kevin was keeping it out of the locker room I hope I hope that you heard that no I I mean I’ve been doing this for 25 years I I know you I kind of I kind of wait we love Jeremy Tash we do

We we have fact he’s a five reasons Alone um but he has to do some stuff for B in the locker room the problem is Jeremy will actually ask questions but the others who are in the locker room until the beat guys come in will not so essentially they just leech off our

Interviews and so I try to get something in before all of the cameras come anyway they like him let let’s just start there let’s just start there before we get into the mechanics of this and whether he should start and how many minutes he should get they like him like

That’s been evident from the very start and veteran players particularly whether it’s an older veteran like Kevin Love who actually put LeBron in a sentence with him I don’t know if you guys picked that up or it’s somebody like Tyler who has been who’s a young veteran at this

Stage and has gotten a lot of shine and sometimes when we know Heat fans when they give another young player shine they do it at Tyler’s detriment to seems to be like has to be one or the other I mean even we’ve had those conversations with hawz um or about haakas

But sometimes young guys come in and they don’t work and I mean that with the word work like they don’t put in the work and so other so teammates kind of get resentful of whatever playing time that they may get you don’t hear that with niic we’ve never heard that and

Then you also don’t see a lot of guys who Jimmy Butler takes you know under his wing and basically is pushing him to to play more pushing for him to play more pushing for him not to play a certain position Brady what have you sensed with all

That well I’ll just say uh number one the pr version of this is the fact that players are always going to talk good about teammates like if you ask them all the time even if they’re not their biggest fan they’re going to talk good about them uh but this team talks

Differently about Nico OIC like they legitimately light up their eyes light up they talk about uh how much how talented he is the skill that he has everything along those lines that it just you see it in their eyes when they when they talk about him right now you

Talk about the veterans top me and the young guys uh love playing with him just because of his style in general so I think just from that perspective alone it’s just fun to to just see everybody talk about him in that way uh because he’s an easy player to play with

We talk about this team not having a point guard but AOL yovic is this team’s point guard essentially like he’s the guy that’s getting these guys in their spots so that’s kind of been the the key thing that stuck out with the locker room guys Alex you know when you talk about

Uh again two different things I’m glad Brady hit on both of them there’s the personality element to this right but there’s also the place style element to this and he wants to run but we don’t usually see guys want to run like Eric exposer told me a long

Time ago he’s like you guys always talk about us playing faster and players always talk about playing faster and then the season starts and none of the guys want to run anymore um but it does seem like they want to run with him and we’ve talked about what a bad transition

Team this is and they’re awful I mean there were even some sequences last night that were just that are hideous I mean that that hit ahead to Duncan I don’t know what that possession was there’s always like three or four of those like you know what just slow down

And play one on five that’s it you’re better off doing that than playing three on- one because you don’t know what to do with three on- one but when he’s in transition it seems like things work yeah he’s a natural man there’s no doubt about it I feel like that’s kind

Of when he’s in his element the most is when he’s kind of playing in transition whether it’s a full Fast Break or just straight up like a semi semi- transition just kind of dribbling up the ball trying to find where the advantage where the advantage is and I feel like he’s

Really good at not stopping the ball for no reason which is a very like basic thing he doesn’t stop himself in Fast Break which is something that for some reason other Heat players seem to do like they just get so hesitant we talked about this the other night and I almost

Lost my mind getting frustrated about it because it’s it’s simple things like it’s taking advantage of the numbers advantage and he know it’s it’s a simple thing he makes the right pass or he goes all the way to the rim and finishes it’s just very nice very refreshing and as

Brady talked about when you combine that with the passing which he got you know the six assist last night even though he had the the bad shooting game or whatever like you see the blueprint for what they saw when they drafted him and um I think I told Brady this last night

At the game that it just feels very and we’ve talked about it before but it feels very much like yic is one of the least heat like heat type players I guess that they’ve drafted in the past like decade or so however long you want to put it like it doesn’t he doesn’t

Seem like a heat type of player when they drafted him and I think that’s part of what’s kind of tantalizing about him is he is a different type of prospect um he’s got a different type of skill set and you know we’ve compared him to different guys over the years but man

It’s just cool to see him do this whenever he gets a chance and even though he’s getting put in these situations where like they’re missing Jimmy a lot of times they’re missing other role players uh when he’s gotten the chance to play this season he’s had multiple games like lowkey where he gets

Multiple assists several assists and it’s just kind of like it goes under the radar we don’t talk about it too much because the passing is already you know what we consider a strength for him and then last night he goes and shows off the defense and we talked about it on

Our quick takes video last night that we posted on YouTube after the game but that’s the stuff that it’s like okay there’s the Improvement right you had the improvement with the body and him growing into his body him attacking the rim we already know he was good in

Transition good as a passer and then last night he shows off the defense and had a crazy sequence in the third quarter I believe just non-stop defense I I think finished the game with four stocks so yeah like even though he’s being put in the situations where he’s

Not playing alongside all the team’s best players and maybe isn’t being put in the greatest lineups in the world like you know some of them are with Duncan hero and love at the same time somehow like he is still going out there and producing he doesn’t have to be in a

Perfect context to play his game and that makes me feel even better about it because once he is put in that position whenever he is a part of the regular rotation I feel good about it like he can play around different types of players there’s really three things we

Need to evaluate with him and I think they’re evaluating with him so we hit on the first one the first one is the transition stuff and like you said he’s natural there I and they need it they need it I don’t think it’s they have to

Find a way to get easy baskets even if we’re talking about the playoffs they need and you’ve talked about it Brady their entire transition offense is Kevin Love Outlet passes to Jimmy Butler that’s it other than that they they they do not find a way to get the ball to Bam

On the break he’s a willing Runner they don’t get it to him he did have a couple of dunks last night on the break we’ve talked about how his dunk numbers are down again this season and he’s basically become a mid-range player on offense which is something that we’re

Going to talk about in a future episode but they don’t use his athleticism that way Caleb is the other who can finish on the break but we haven’t seen him consistently Josh is not a good transition player at this point Duncan is only a good transition player if he’s

Going to spot up from the three they don’t run that stuff a whole bunch um and Tyler can make bad decisions on the break we’ve seen that uh hakz you’ve talked about it in transition he just goes like I and and he’s been effective at doing that but he hasn’t developed

Kind of the next layer to that yic is natural there the other two places are half court offense and the defense and that’s what SPO is waiting on I think is one of those two to become a positive for them with any kind of lineup and then he’s going to get the

Consistent minutes but I want to make one other point because on the other side we will talk about who should be the starting four and where this goes from here I saw a lot of Heat fans on the timeline today saying This is why he should have been

Playing and I always make the counterargument to this this is why he wasn’t playing okay because their development process like there’s this idea whenever a guy pops for the heat they’re like well see look we’ve been saying this all along like SPO said last night he looks

Really good or he looks whatever next to Bam yes we have all been saying that because that’s the projection okay that’s the projection like that’s where he ultimately fits with this team long term I’ve said it they look at this as a bridged timeline right right now it’s

Jimmy bam and Tyler or the bridges toah hakz and maybe yic that’s the way that it’s been described to me unless they make a trade of one of those pieces but the reason that you’re seeing more of this and I think Sean Rochester from our network has really hit on this consistently

Is that he had to kind of crawl before he could walk and walk before he could run and I think he’s they’ve gotten him from the crawl to the walk stage now so that I think the reason that he looks the way he looks right now is because

They’ve made him earn it they’ve worked on these things behind the scenes they’ve made him go to sou Falls and we can talk about maybe having him play out of position at sou Falls and all the rest because they didn’t have a natural five unless Orlando Robinson was there

But I do think we’re seeing the fruits of their developmental process and the one thing I don’t understand about some Heat fans I’m just going to throw it out there I understand why you don’t trust them to make a trade at this point I get it okay I don’t understand why you don’t

Trust them in the developmental process because I will ask you with the exception of kak paa okay who looks like or precious who they traded beforehand and I don’t KY is not tearing up the league anywhere else who have they failed to develop recently in terms of skill set into a

Better player than before inherited that player and that player does not exist in my view so I just wanted to touch on that all right on the other side of this we’ll get into more of what he did well and then GNA pose this question so I’ll

Throw this at the both of you guys they didn’t didn’t have a starting four option right well now they have yic they’ll have Martin eventually they’ve got Haywood healthy again and they have for spot minutes Kevin Love so what direction should they go for the rest of the regular season provided everybody’s

Healthy they also have hawz by that’s a fifth option what direction should they go with the rest of the regular season and what direction would they go in the playoffs before we do want to introduce a great new sponsor of the five reason Sports Network and this is a great

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All right guys so let me throw it at you here right now do either of you think niic is ready to start right now I’ll go to Brady right now 100% because his team isn’t healthy I think in that context so right now yes um you mentioned about

Like the starting four thing but here’s the biggest thing about before I get to your question the right now part is they also don’t have a starting point guard because Kyle L is going to be out so like he fills both voids so it makes too

Much sense not to play the guy it makes too much sense not to play him in the role that he’s been playing in so 100% now whatever he does in this upcoming stretch I feel like will be the deciding factor for it but I think he is 100% in

The conversation he is 100% up for it but the issue is when we keep talking about the rest of the rotation as much as we all want to see it the guy that I keep coming back to and it may not feel like it this is where they’re going to

Go I think they’ll ultimately go Caleb Martin at the four that’s just kind of where I feel like they are I feel like they’re going to stagger a lot of these guys because if you if or when you’re fully healthy you have hawz Off the Bench you have Duncan Off the Bench you

Have potentially Haywood Off the Bench are you going to be able to put Caleb in that mix too like that’s a lot of guys that you’re playing off the bench that have kind of like a not a ton of on ball you know usage it’s more so just kind of

Playing off different ranges so I think they ultimately go Caleb but I am not opposed to them going yic just for the reasons that we’ve seen and especially because it’s it’s I think people get annoyed with the with his minut distribution but like he’s literally

Playing like like a a little bit of an expanded role of the Myers role a few years ago like he plays the beginning of the quarter and then he doesn’t come back in like he he just doesn’t like he he came back in I think in the first

Half for like a minute the final minute of the second quarter but that was like for I think a foul trouble reason or something they they play him for the initial stint they get let him kind of just go and run and then they kind of work in their their wings and everything

Else they like to get to there’s no reason not to Contin continue that there’s no reason not to continue to kind of play with him next to Bam in those ranges especially when you hear SPO talking about it last night which he’s talked a lot about yic and Bam

We’ve heard this these conversations and he still ends up in sou Falls for a couple weeks but like this one where he’s sitting here talking about how Dynamic it is and all of this stuff and it’s like okay is this one is this the time it’s legit is this the time where

He’s he’s really seeing it and to go back to what he was doing yesterday real quickly because uh my my camera to start this episode was looking like the Heat’s transition offense so I wasn’t able to get off what I was going to say before but the defense last night to Alex’s

Point was the part where I think the real Dynamic part in spo’s opinion like that was the part that jumped off to him because you mentioned it you said it’s you have to kind of you need one of the two or one of the three you said but

Defense and the shooting has been my two question marks and you look at last night the shooting wasn’t there the shooting wasn’t all the way there and I still think there’s things to figure out there but like the defense was was really something like the defense the

Way he his his activity his movement using his length to his Advantage the one issue I continually say he’s moved his feet really well this entire year the one thing has been the fouling stuff with his hands like he just gets his hands caught and he kind of gets these

Foul calls which could continue to happen but I think he’s if you continue to play him and let him get kind of learn the league a little bit he’s going to figure it out on the fly it feels like so these opportunities are are important but there was a play last

Night where I was like okay this is the part that makes it Dynamic it was just a random play where like Hawkins came off a pick and roll bam uh and everything’s attracting there hawkis throws it back up to the left wing to yic and yic like

Flies in a hand off for Tyler and Tyler hits a three that’s why it’s dynamic because you have two guys that you can run multiple actions for where if you have to reverse it out of your action yic can fly into the next action like

You don’t have to have bam is your only Hub on the floor so I think that stuff’s so important and that’s the reason you kind of as much as we talk about love and ban being good love has been great without bam like he has been great in

The back of five role and that’s why you want to keep him there as for yic I’ve been a big you know his his real impact has been with bam that I feel like continuing to kind of roll with that is important so we’ll see how they continue

It but I would continue to roll with theic at the four for as long as possible as you go in the stretch and as I always say they’re probably never going to be fully healthy so there’s no reason to keep predicting and saying well what if this guy comes back in what

Do they do here just keep rolling with these guys until you have to fully make that decision which probably be never oh Brady kind of cheated there because I’m with him in the sense that now since you don’t have Kyle and you don’t have Caleb you continue to start

Him but and I’m G I’m going to go away from your premise which I agree with that they’re never going to be fully healthy I’m going to take the most ridiculous leap of faith here and say they are fully healthy okay or reasonably fully healthy should I knock on something reasonably fully healthy

Alex I won’t go all the way okay they have most of their pieces do do you see him starting because here’s my question related to that as we build on this is if you don’t start him I’m wondering where the minutes come from and and I I it’s sort

Of what Brady’s getting at because yoit was asked last night about playing you know that long stint not coming out in the first here’s why I think they’re doing as suppos doing this he doesn’t want to make him think in too many situations like I it feels like okay you

Got two stints you’re out there with these guys some of the other guys might get subbed in but by then you’re warm you’re comfortable and all the rest of this I think it’s harder for a guy like yic to come out be subbed back into with a different group and then have to

Figure out okay now I got to get warm and I got to get right with this group so I think I think keeping his stints to a minimum makes sense but extending the minutes in them is where I think SPO wants to go with this so if that’s the case

Alex does he have to start because if he doesn’t start okay keev like I said Kevin L has been an elite backup five really so if you’re not going to start yic I don’t know where the minutes come from if you have H let’s say Martin starting and you have

High Smith healthy and you have Richardson healthy and you have you know you know what I’m saying and you’re bringing hakz Off the Bench again and Duncan I don’t I don’t know where those minutes come from well I think some tough decisions are going to be have to be are gonna

Have to be made if that’s the case right and obviously there’s different things going on here that you guys just touched on so there’s to me there’s one thing that matters most when you’re trying to project what y’s role could be going forward whether you’re talking about

Shortterm or the rest of the season or long term whatever to me it’s just about like how comfortable SPO is playing him um quote unquote out of position and by that I mean like last night and other games you’ve seen him play with Kevin Love now and that’s something that I

Feel like before we might not have seen and you know um SPO mentioned how much he likes playing him with bam which I I I think he’s been he’s been good with bam too but to me I’m I I’m open to him starting or coming off the bench and I

Mean the starting part because of what Brady said earlier where like Kyle’s out now I wouldn’t mind like if you wanted to you know have yovic and Caleb start or yic and high Smith whatever the scenario is I think that makes sense and it goes to my thinking that they don’t

Need a traditional point guard as far as like what they have on the roster right now I think yoi could step up and fill that role whether as a starting again quote unquote point guard or or quote unquote power forward doesn’t matter to me now if you’re saying the team is

Fully healthy and you’re saying Caleb’s back Jimmy’s back back we already you know saw Haywood came back that’s where it gets really tough and I think that’s where the tough decisions might have to be made and you might have to pick you over over somebody else and we can get

Into you know who a couple of those names might be um but yeah like you’re gonna have to pick him over somebody else if if and when the team gets back to being fully healthy which they’re not right now because I think like like I said right now I’m good with him

Starting I’m good with him coming off the bench I feel that he can play with multiple different types of lineups and I I felt better about that because of the like I said earlier the context that he’s been put in recently where he’s just getting kind of thrown out there

All all these different types of lineups that you might not think are ideal for him I just want to see him produce and he has so I think it’s worth finding minutes for him I’m not a 100% sure that when they have their entire 10-man rotation back how he’s going to get put

Into rotation but look if you just look at like the onoff stuff you know um in the 154 minutes that he’s played this season for the heat there are 8.75 net rating when he’s on the court so that’s not all that matters of course but they’re winning the minutes when he

Plays and he is showing out more often than not when he plays even if he isn’t fully polished I think he has earned more playing time like you said whether it’s extending the sance that he’s already getting or just kind of getting a little bit creative where like you’re

Kind of playing a little bit bigger in some matchups right like if you’re just going to have yic as your point guard I think there’s a lot of scenarios where they can play him more I think it’s more about what SPO is willing to do once everybody is back what’s interesting is

They’re winning his minutes and they’re winning lovees minutes this year um and having bigs uh and you know whether you call yic a big or not he’s a tall player for sure but that they could win their minutes with is something that they did not have last season so that I mean

That’s because with the the non vanam minutes we’ve been talking about those for the last three years I’ll just say this before we close if you start him then the guy who may be doesn’t start ultimately is Kyle and and I I think that’s a conversation

That we will have and we’ll see how much time Kyle misses now but maybe Kyle comes off the bench to run the bench and I know you’re rubbing your hands together I like it uh we’ll see where it goes but I I think that might be a direction that the season tilts here

Because you’re right they have another ball handler in the starting lineup it gives them more flexibility could you start Duncan could you start haime could you what what could you do with some of those you start yic wouldn’t you rather also have like that point of attack guy

Which would be Caleb or heith as well so that they can do that for him that’s that’s that that’s that’s the other option and that’s why I’m well for at that point but but I I’ll that that’s why this Kyle injury is interesting what’s happened here this

Season and I think that this is where we’ll finish this and again check out all the other episodes here and also the YouTube channel is that these these absences have created OPP opportunities um for them and and now you know maybe Kyle’s absence although not necessarily welcome if he misses a

Little bit of time this allows spoler to experiment with some different things and also get Kyle some rest when you know if he’s going to be here past the trade deadline you’re going to need his minutes at some point going forward but I mean if you’re just saying you’re

Gonna plug in yic with Lowry then you’re talking about having to bring Caleb uh Josh hock Duncan and Haywood all I mean you basically throwing all your wings Off the Bench I you know other than Jimmy I don’t know if that’s necessarily and that doesn’t even include Kane who’s

Gotten spot minutes during this period of time so we’ll see the direction it goes but the one other thing I want to say we’re going to do a full episode because I put this on Twitter today I don’t know that there are many teams and they’re playing OKC on Wednesday so

We’ll probably see the one team okay I don’t know that there are many teams that have a core of players 2 and under that are better than Miami and the difference between Miami and even OKC’s because OK didn’t OKC didn’t draft Shay the heat drafted all of them and they

Drafted them all 14th or lower I mean that’s you talk about a bridge timeline like continuing to compete while building a young core it does appear they’ve thread the needle on this now they just need Jimmy Butler to get back out there and healthy and contributing the way that he can all

Right thanks for Brady uh for Alex and also uh for our sponsors tub culture go to shop tub culture.com better edge.com use the code five at shop tub culture and use the code five RSN or five reasons with better Edge have a good day everybody thank you for

Listening to the five on the floor on the five reasons Sports Network after all someone needs to listen to my dad

Nikola Jovic’s eye-opening performance against the Rockets raises some interesting and exciting questions. Can he start beyond this stint, when Jimmy Butler and Caleb Martin are still injured? And what more can be added to his role? Ethan, Brady and Alex look at the emergence of the Heat’s 2022 draft pick.

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