fishfuego. wrote:Spo seems to have a bad case of Jovicphobia. I mean the short leash Jovic is under for a first rounder 6’11” ( 6’10” plus) skilled player is painful to watch. First year JJJ, who is not, and I’ll repeat, who’s not more talented nor skilled than Jovic gets a full blown green light full of crucial mistakes, game after game.
Could it be a regional marketing decision?
I don’t know, what else can it be?
Jovic has the height, he is a second year 1st round pick, has the better all around skill, can expand the floor, can play inside, can rebound inside, can alter shots even from bigs.
Just look at JJJ’s crucial mistakes last night, but he was kept even through an avalanche of those.
This coach is running a ‘Culture’ as labeled alright, his very own super flawed approach, as if he has a personal complex of not being tall and limited himself.
THis take confuses me. Everyone knew Jovic was a raw prospect coming out. That's the only reason Miami was able to draft him.
He's 20 years old and has made great progress playing winning ball this season. From my vantage point, this season is a great success for Jovic and his development and it's obvious that there is a lot for him to build on for years to come.
He's a 6'11 forward with a versatile skillset.
Could he have put up some funner statlines if Spo just let him loose and catered the team's approach to play to Jovic's natural playing style? Sure.
Would that have been the approach to make him a winning player and help the team compete? I don't think so. I bet his advanced metrics in terms of contributing to winning this season would have been MUCH worse.
I'm fully confident that Jovic will grow into more of an on-ball role creating offense in the seasons to come. But, if he is just doing that and not proving capable of banging with bigs, playing smart team defense, screening and rebounding, then what advantage is being gained?
If we can develop the version of Jovic that (1) gives us size advantage in the frontcourt, (2) gives us another big to defend the slower big men in the NBA and allow Bam to be maximized defensively, (3) gives us another versatile screener that can double as an on-ball creator, (3) is a reliable spot-up shooter AND (4) can also build off of his natural game as a ballhandler pushing pace and creating some of his own offense then that is a FAR superior player to the version that isn't doing items (1) through (3).
Opting not to give the keys to the offense for Jovic to essentially play PG is NOT why Miami is in this position right now.
More good things to come.