In this year's Olympics in Paris is being well represented by the Miami Heat as while Bam Adebayo continues to make his mark for Team USA, teammate Nikola Jovic has also been playing for Team Serbia. This is all while nursing a left ankle sprain per the Heat confirming to ClutchPoints back in early June, getting it from an offseason workout in Miami.
While there was not too much concern on his availability for the start of training camp and especially the season for the Heat, Jovic was planning to represent his country of Serbia in the Olympics. Despite all the concern with his injury, he did play the first two games for his country as he caught up with Tim Reynolds of The Associated Press Wednesday and gave some good news saying he feels “great.”
“I’m doing great,” Jovic said via Reynolds' X, formerly Twitter, account. “I haven’t done a lot, but I really wanted to be with the team and coach [Erik Spoelstra] and everybody from the front office was good with it. The imaging was great. My foot looked great. Maybe I’m not in the best shape right now, but when you step on the court, the adrenaline and everything brings the best out of me. I’ll do whatever I can to help this team win and I’ll for sure be ready for the season.”
Jovic talks facing against Team USA and Heat teammate Bam Adebayo
There were multiple possessions where Jovic was guarding his own Miami teammate in Adebayo as the 21-year old finished that game only scoring five points (making just one of his six attempts from the field) to go with two rebounds, one assist, and one steal. While Serbia would lose to USA, 110-84, they would bounce back in a huge way blowing out Puerto Rico Wednesday morning 107-66 where Jovic had a much better game scoring 10 points to go with three rebounds and two assists.
The young Heat star would score nine of those points in the second half, gaining a groove off the bench of Serbia who remains one of the more talented teams in the entire world. Jovic would talk to Reynolds of The Associated Press about having a tough opener against the stacked Team USA and sticking to the game plan of Serbia head coach Svetislav Pešić.
“For an opening game, to play against probably the best team, it's really hard,” Jovic said. “They kind of showed us how good we need to be if we want to beat them and I think that's actually a good thing for us. Today, we just stayed with the coach's plan. This was everything he wanted: stay aggressive defensively. And that's what we did.”
Jovic on playing alongside Nikola Jokic on Team Serbia
This is not Jovic's first rodeo with the Serbian national team as he was a part of the group that won a silver medal in the FIBA World Cup in 2023. He is looking to add another medal to an impressive resume for any young player and to help him to that is his teammate in Denver Nuggets superstar Nikola Jokic as Jovic talks how special it has been to play and learn from a player like him.
“I mean, it's awesome,” Jovic said to The Associated Press reporter Tim Reynolds. “It's not common to play with that type of player a lot and to play with him, I would say it's an honor because I feel like he's the greatest player ever from Serbia. It's a great experience and it's an honor to share the court with him.”
Where Jovic fits with the Heat this upcoming season
All the experience that Jovic is getting from his time in the Olympics on arguably the grandest stage possible will no doubt help and translate back to the NBA with the Miami Heat. He showed major improvement last season where he started most of the second half of the season becoming the exact player needed at the power forward position next to Adebayo who has been the team's permanent center.
Last season, Jovic averaged 7.7 points, 4.2 rebounds, and 2.0 assists per game while shooting 45.2 percent from the field and 39.9 percent from beyond the arch. It is expected that those numbers will go up as the Serbian born star looks to be locked in to a starter spot, unless first-round pick and seven-foot rookie Kel'el Ware makes huge strides and becomes the center, moving Adebayo to the power forward spot.
Either way, Jovic will be integral to Heat head coach Erik Spoelstra's rotation as he was last season, especially as the team looks to improve after finishing at the eighth seed for the second straight season with a 46-36 record. They would eventually be eliminated by the champions Boston Celtics in the first round of the NBA Playoffs, despite making the NBA Finals the year prior.
Miami fans could next see Jovic play for Team Serbia as they face South Sudan on Saturday, August 3, still looking to get past the group play and head into the knockout round.
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