Getty Rookie forward Jaime Jaquez Jr. celebrates after a basket for the Miami Heat.
Rookies drafted outside the lottery don’t typically make significant impacts in their inaugural seasons. But Jaime Jaquez Jr. isn’t your typical first-year player, and the Miami Heat aren’t your typical NBA organization.
Erik Spoelstra, one of the longest-tenured head coaches in the Association, has proven himself a master at wringing talent out of his roster, constantly finagling with lineups to maximize their efficacy during postseason play. Sometimes he unearths gems later in the year (see: Caleb Martin in 2022-23). Jaquez, though, is capitalizing on his initial opportunities and justifying his status as both a “bad dude” and an archetypal Heat contributor.
Thanks to the generational hype swirling around Victor Wembanyama and the immediate, non-hyperbolic All-Star impact of Chet Holmgren, Rookie of the Year honors may be out of the question regardless of Jaquez’s impressive per-game numbers (12.0 points, 3.9 rebounds, 2.6 assists and 1.1 steals while shooting 52.5/39.3/79.3).
Fortunately for the Heat, the UCLA product has his sights set on more important goals.
Jaime Jaquez Jr. Has Championship Aspirations
“I don’t really pay attention to that,” Jaquez explained to HoopsHype’s Michael Scotto when asked about the Rookie of the Year battle in late November. “I’m focused on winning games, whether I was a rookie or not. That’s my main focus, win games. As far as that conversation, it’s not something I pay attention to.”
So far, so good.
Jaquez has used his experience as a four-year collegiate player at UCLA to ease his transition to both the grind of an NBA regular season and the amped-up speed of the professional product, refusing to operate outside the flow of the Miami offense and frequently slowing down possessions when his number is called.
He plays tough defense and flashes quick hands while showing positioning instincts that often elude first-year contributors. He’s looked more than capable of drilling shots from beyond the rainbow, which runs counter to expectations since perimeter marksmanship was widely viewed as a wart on his pre-draft resume.
Most impressively, he’s dazzled with fundamental footwork around the painted area and displayed scoring touch and passing finesse as a secondary distributor to keep defenses off-balance, just as he did so well with the Bruins.
Rookies often struggle with defense. Not so for Jaquez, whose defensive box plus/minus outpaces his offensive box plus/minus, per Basketball Reference.
They typically have turnover troubles, particularly those that stem from forcing the issue on their relatively meager touches or failing to understand the speed and athleticism of even low-end NBA defenders. Not so for Jaquez, whose 3.4 assists and 2.0 turnovers per 36 minutes stand out for a forward still piecing together his role in an advanced offensive system.
Even more impressively, Jaquez is doing all this after suffering a preseason groin injury — a malady that can sometimes sink a rookie’s early efforts as they attempt to make up for missed time and learn on the fly.
Miami Heat Are Letting Jaquez Build Confidence in Key Moments
“𝙄𝙩’𝙨 𝙟𝙪𝙨𝙩 𝙗𝙖𝙨𝙠𝙚𝙩𝙗𝙖𝙡𝙡…I just give credit to my teammates for giving me the confidence.”
Jaime Jaquez Jr. speaks after dropping 24 points and helping lead the Heat to a 45-point 4th quarter in tonight’s win ♨️
In NBA.com’s annual preseason survey of general managers, Jaquez (the No. 18 pick of the 2023 NBA draft) received 10% of the votes for biggest draft steal, leaving him tied with Keyonte George of the Utah Jazz (No. 16) and Scoot Henderson of the Portland Trail Blazers (No. 3) but behind Cam Whitmore of the Houston Rockets (No. 20), who received 43% of the votes.
In many ways, this early impact isn’t too out of the blue.
But Jaquez isn’t just putting up respectable numbers as he fills a sixth-man role; he’s actively contributing at the most critical moments and quickly earning Spoelstra’s trust.
“It’s not just the trust that he’s building with the coaching staff, which he has done. It’s the reliability, the ability to compete at a high level but still do it with a brain. He’s attentive to the details,” the head coach explained, per Ira Winderman of the South Florida Sun Sentinel.
“He’s earned the trust of his teammates, which I think is the most important thing, and in particular the veteran players. You do that by competing tough and being emotionally, mentally reliable. Those are tough things to do in this league, particularly for a young player.”
With the caveat that Caleb Martin, Tyler Herro and Jimmy Butler have all missed time, Jaquez has played 9.0 minutes per game in the fourth quarter while appearing a team-high 19 times, per NBA.com. During those closing periods, he’s shot 56.3% from the field and 43.8% from downtown while continuing to suppress his turnovers and learn from his rare mistakes. Among rookies, only the Washington Wizards‘ Bilal Coulibaly has logged more fourth-quarter run.
Maybe that changes when the Heat are operating at full strength. Perhaps Jaquez will spend more time on the pine when Spoelstra constricts his postseason rotation. But the rookie has checked all the boxes thus far, at the very least giving one of the NBA’s premier head coaches yet another weapon in his arsenal as he attempts to end a decade-long title drought.
Miami is coming off an NBA Finals appearance in 2022-23, albeit one that ended in a five-game loss to the Denver Nuggets. Many of the core pieces are back to defend the Eastern Conference crown. A championship is the only realistic goal.
Jaquez originally made headlines in South Beach because of his possible inclusion in Damian Lillard trade packages. Now he’s making them for entirely different reasons and imbuing his squad with even more long-term optimism all the while.