{"id":909963,"date":"2026-09-29T16:10:09","date_gmt":"2026-09-29T16:10:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/909963\/"},"modified":"2026-09-29T16:10:09","modified_gmt":"2026-09-29T16:10:09","slug":"heat-notes-jovic-richards-larsson-shooting-mitchell","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/909963\/","title":{"rendered":"Heat Notes: Jovic, Richards, Larsson, Shooting, Mitchell"},"content":{"rendered":"

Heat forward Nikola Jovic<\/a>, who signed a four-year, $62.4MM rookie scale extension ahead of the 2025\/26 season, had a disappointing year, battling back problems and averaging just 7.3 points on .366\/.269\/.683 shooting in 47 regular season appearances.<\/p>\n

As his new contract takes effect, Jovic said on Monday at the Heat\u2019s media day that he hasn\u2019t had any issues with his back in months and is optimistic about being a \u201cspark plug off the bench\u201d in 2026\/27, per Barry Jackson of The Miami Herald<\/a>. Head coach Erik Spoelstra told reporters that Jovic \u201cchecked all the boxes I wanted him to check\u201d over the summer and said he\u2019s hopeful about what the 23-year-old can bring to the team going forward.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was terrific in (World Cup) qualifying games for Serbia. He\u2019s still a young player,\u201d Spoelstra said, according to Jackson and Anthony Chiang of The Herald<\/a>. \u201cEven though sometimes it feels like I have no patience for that growth\u2026 when it doesn\u2019t go as well as he wants it to go, it\u2019s OK. It doesn\u2019t have to be end-of-the-world body language when he misses a couple shots. We all make mistakes. He worked on that and showed accountability this summer. He\u2019s going to make an impact on this team with his versatility.\u201d<\/p>\n

We have more on the Heat:<\/p>\n

Heat center Nick Richards<\/a> admitted that his camp was shocked that a non-guaranteed deal from Miami was the best contract offer he got during the 2026 offseason, tweets Jackson<\/a>. Richards suggested he\u2019s coming to camp with a chip on his shoulder after thinking that the summer would \u201cgo a different way.\u201d
\nThird-year wing Pelle Larsson<\/a>, who referred to his new four-year, $60MM rookie scale extension<\/a> as \u201cinsane,\u201d said on Monday that he\u2019s expecting to take on more ball-handling responsibilities this fall, as Jackson relays<\/a>. \u201cWe have maybe less point guards,\u201d he said. \u201cI go from being a clear wing to a (combo guard). \u2026 A lot of guys can bring it up. I will probably end up being a (point guard) in some lineups. I handled the ball more than I ever had this summer (in World Cup qualifying games for Sweden), so I got some practice.\u201d
\nAfter trading for Giannis Antetokounmpo<\/a>, the Heat faced questions about whether they\u2019d have enough three-point shooting around star big men Antetokounmpo and Bam Adebayo<\/a>, but swingman Simone Fontecchio<\/a> doesn\u2019t think that will be an issue. Fontecchio said on Monday that he has never been on a team with so many skilled three-point shooters, according to Jackson.
\nEvery player on the roster passed the Heat\u2019s notorious pre-camp conditioning test, Jackson writes. Point guard Davion Mitchell<\/a> admitted that he failed the test last year but said he lost 10 pounds this offseason and is in better shape.
\nIn case you missed it, we passed along several Heat notes<\/a> on Monday as well, including some highlights from Antetokounmpo\u2019s media day availability.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Heat forward Nikola Jovic, who signed a four-year, $62.4MM rookie scale extension ahead of the 2025\/26 season, had…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":909964,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[574],"tags":[64,63,726,57552,20450,65416,71148,70740,85],"class_list":["post-909963","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-basketball","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-basketball","tag-davion-mitchell","tag-nick-richards","tag-nikola-jovic","tag-pelle-larsson","tag-simone-fontecchio","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/909963","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=909963"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/909963\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/909964"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=909963"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=909963"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=909963"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}