The Heat need an identity. Nikola Jovic can help.

For the first time in years, the Miami Heat don’t know who they are.

Jimmy Butler’s larger-than-life presence is gone. Tyler Herro will miss the beginning of the season. Bam Adebayo is still here, but there are a bunch of young and/or unfamiliar faces around him. Few have proven anything in the Association.

That hasn’t lessened the team’s confidence. While Erik Spoelstra has talked about “embracing the unknown,” both Bam Adebayo and Norman Powell have stated that they view themselves as contenders. I love the confidence, but that ain’t reality.

The truth is that Miami is a team looking for a way forward. The offense has been ragged for years, and while the defense steadfastly clings to its top-10 rating (which it has sported for an astonishing 10 straight years!), the D has been more of a life raft than a weapon. It’s hard to look at this roster and anticipate a dominant unit on that end.

However, the Heat can still be good, particularly in an upheaved Eastern Conference. For that to happen, they’ll need a breakout season from someone, an agent of change. Fourth-year forward Nikola Jovic needs to be that player.

If you aren’t super familiar with Jovic, there’s good reason for that. The 22-year-old Serbian has played in just 107 games across his three seasons, struggling first to earn Spoelstra’s trust and then with a variety of injuries. If you flipped on a random Heat game in the last three years, there’s a better than 50/50 chance that Jovic wasn’t playing. Even when he was healthy, his role has vacillated dramatically.

But the Heat just locked him up to a four-year, $62 million contract (and if those numbers pop your eyes, remember that ~$15 million a year is around 9% of the salary cap now) for a purpose. Few players in the league possess Jovic’s combination of size and skill. Scarcity gets paid.

Jovic has reportedly added 25 pounds since entering the league as a teenager. He now stands 6’11” and weighs 245. That’s taller than Adebayo and heavier than second-year center Kel’el Ware.

That said, Jovic is more likely to play the three this year than the five. He has always been more at home on the perimeter, and his most NBA-ready skill is his shooting. Jovic is a career 37% shooter from downtown on high positional volume (6.5 attempts per 36 minutes). While he’s willing to shoot from anywhere around the arc, he’s hit at nearly a 50% clip from the corners over the last two seasons.

Nobody will mistake Jovic for Dirk Nowitzki anytime soon, but that combination of volume and accuracy from a power forward is still rare in today’s NBA.

Jovic is far from a shooting specialist, however. He’s extremely comfortable with the ball in his hands. He’s got a kineticism to him, an inability to stay still, that adds a little chaos to what has too often been a staid Heat attack. Not many near-seven-footers can handle the ball at top speed, suck in the help defense, and deliver a laser to the corner:

Jovic’s length makes him an underrated force in transition. He’s no skywalker (he has just eight dunks in his career; a phonebook is an insurmountable hurdle), but he eats up ground and attacks before defenses know what hit them, using his long arms to finish with either hand around the basket.

That pace-pushing is important, and it’s a huge reason why Jovic could be a pivotal piece for Miami this season. Spoelstra, like seemingly every coach in the league, has talked about the need to play more like the Indiana Pacers this season. Inbound quicker, get into the offense quicker, make quicker decisions… just be quicker.

By any measure of pace (possessions, time to shot, etc.) Miami was one of the five slowest teams last season. Jovic is one of the few guys on the team with a turbo button. Having a player who can grab a rebound and go coast-to-coast is a great way to speed things up. He’ll be encouraged to do so at every opportunity.

That handle also serves Jovic well in the halfcourt. I hope that Spoelstra leans a little harder into him as a secondary playmaker. Per Synergy, pick-and-rolls with Jovic as the ballhandler have scored at well above-average rates in each of the last two seasons (on small sample sizes), largely thanks to his ability to find the Heat’s rim-rollers:

Versatility is Jovic’s hallmark. He can spot up to space the floor, run a decent pick-and-roll, and even be the screener (something he’s dramatically improved at since his flinch-filled rookie season). Here, he sets a pick, receives the pass on the short roll, and serves Bam one of his trademark lefty lobs:

Watch that last one again, closely this time. That pass is hard to make, particularly at that kind of speed and with his off hand. Jovic is a big target for double-teamed ballhandlers, and that same height gives him access to difficult-to-reach passing lanes. If his screencraft can improve further, he could be a real weapon in the short roll — an NBA role that is more important every season as teams ramp up on-ball pressure.

Look, I have a passing fetish. Big guys who can sling the rock are my weakness — but Jovic has his own deficiencies.

Jovic has become more comfortable playing with force as he’s gotten older and stronger, but he still has a ways to go, particularly on the defensive end, where he’s far too upright. His center of gravity is so high that even little guys have no issue steamrolling him:

Spoelstra used Jovic at center in small doses earlier in his career, but even those brief glimpses nearly disappeared last season. With Adebayo and Ware on the roster, I don’t anticipate more. Jovic is a poor rebounder (something that has limited his transition effectiveness) and complete nonfactor around the rim defensively.

It’s one thing for six-foot guards to give up uncontested layups on the fast break when they’re more likely to foul than impact the play. It’s quite another for Jovic to fold like an umbrella. Even without much of a vertical leap, he has to provide some sort of deterrence, not whatever this is:

Jovic is more successful on the perimeter in a team concept, where he can use his length in Miami’s zones to corral ballhandlers and shut off passing lanes. There’s a lot to be said for being long-armed and active:

There’s a little bit of Serbian teammate Nikola Jokic in Jovic’s game, where he trades rim protection for passing disruption in a way that looks better in the numbers than on film. He generates a good number of steals and deflections, a big reason why advanced defensive metrics all peg him as average to slightly above-average overall. Average might be a tad generous, but close enough. Opposing players will usually choose to go after Herro, anyway, allowing Jovic to play to his strengths. And, entering his age-22 season, he should only improve on that end.

With Davion Mitchell likely to assume Herro’s minutes at point guard to begin the year, and Bam Adebayo, Norm Powell, and Andrew Wiggins locked in, the Heat’s final starting spot will come down to Jovic or Ware. Erik Spoelstra has been uncharacteristically critical of Ware this offseason, which stands in stark contrast to mild (but, by comparison, effusive) praise for Jovic’s maturity. The writing on the wall is in washable marker, but it seems to indicate that tough love will extend to another year of Ware coming off the bench (although, with Spoelstra, every possible combination under the sun will be tried and tested).

The team will play dramatically differently with Jovic instead of Ware in the starting unit. Ware has his own defensive warts but provides a legitimate shotblocking presence on a Heat team that needs it. He’s also a fun above-the-rim finisher.

But Jovic provides far more offensive juice, opening up driving lanes for Mitchell, Powell, and (eventually) Herro. He mashes the gas pedal in transition, and provides flexible playmaking from a variety of roles. Jovic’s athleticism will always limit his upside, but the skill level provides for a high floor, as well. He even looked noticeably more physical on both ends during a largely successful EuroBasket run with Serbia this summer (although I won’t fully believe it until I see it in the NBA).

If he’s to make a mark, he needs to do it quickly: The Heat’s opening 15 games are brutal, including four straight against Cleveland and New York in mid-November. There’s a chance Miami will only be favored in two matches, both against Charlotte. If Jovic struggles early and the team falters out of the gate, all bets are off.

But the Heat are still searching for an identity. If they want to play fast, if they want to play smart, if they want to play quick basketball… Nikola Jovic can help Miami find itself.