Nikola Jovic loses minutes again as Heat start 0-4

Jovic didn't sugarcoat it when the Heat beat writers asked about his shrinking role, and Erik Spoelstra didn't really have an answer yet either.

Ira Winderman

@IraHeatBeat

Heat's Jovic again dealing with loss of minutes, "can't say I kind of didn't expect it." t.co/BBsZ0vDsMv Spoelstra, "I’m still trying to find that spot for Niko. So this is different than last year, because he’s been giving us good minutes."

That quote from Jovic is the part that stings. "Can't say I kind of didn't expect it" isn't a guy who's blindsided. It's a guy who has been through this before and recognized it the second it started happening again. He played 24 minutes in the season opener against Minnesota on October 21. Then his minutes dropped, and in Monday's 113-109 loss to the Mavericks he never got off the bench.

Spoelstra's argument is that this time is different. Last year was about Jovic earning his spot back. This year, the coach says, Jovic has been playing well and the problem is just the math of the rotation. Spo said he extended his frontcourt bigs' minutes the other night, and that's the whole trade-off: when the bigs play longer, the hybrid forward gets nothing.

Anthony Chiang

@Anthony_Chiang

NEW: Heat forward Nikola Jovic again dealing with cut of minutes: "I can’t say I kind of didn’t expect it" t.co/vL5iIRpi2b Erik Spoelstra: "Niko is still fully in the mix. I just have to figure it out.”

"Fully in the mix" is a nice thing for a coach to say. A DNP doesn't really back it up. On Monday, Spoelstra went to Pelle Larsson, Bobby Portis, Dru Smith and Tim Hardaway Jr. off the bench instead of Jovic. That's a crowded group of guys who can all argue they've earned minutes, and Jovic got squeezed out of it.

The money makes it harder to ignore. Miami gave Jovic a 4-year, $62.4 million rookie extension last October, fully guaranteed and running through 2029-30 with no options on the back end. He was the No. 27 pick in 2022, and his role had grown every season up to that point. You don't pay a guy that much to sit him in a game where you're already down bad.

And Miami is down bad. Dallas made it 0-4, which means every rotation call is going to get picked apart. You could argue that's exactly when you find out whether the young forward you just extended can help you, not when you bury him behind veterans. You could also argue Spo is chasing whatever lineup steals a win right now. Both can be true at once, and that's why Jovic sounds tired of it.

What to watch: whether Jovic is back in the rotation for the next game, and whether it's real minutes or just garbage time. Spoelstra says he's still trying to find that spot. If he can't find it with the team winless, it's fair to wonder when he will.