Nikola Jovic's FIBA tournament & its meaning for the Miami Heat | Five on the Floor

Welcome to the latest episode of 5 on the Floor on the 5 Reasons Sports Network. Thanks for joining us on your favorite podcast app. We're on Red Circle, Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, also the 5 Reasons YouTube channel. Make sure you hit like, subscribe, turn the notifications on. Also subscribe to Off The Floor. That's where you get texts directly to your phone from Alex, Brady, Greg, and myself. Bypass Twitter, X, and everything else. You get special Q&As there, exclusive behind-the-scenes information before we put it on even the podcast sometimes. And you get prize picks, contests, and more. So check it out. It's at Winnow. That's with two N's, winnow.app backslash Off The Floor. Also want to mention one of the great sponsors of the 5 Reasons Sports Network. I mentioned prize picks. Use that code 5FIVE. Get that initial deposit matched up to $100. Follow our shows on YouTube. We give you good advice most of the time, or at least David Freeman and David Eversol do. Mine is a little bit shaky. But check it out at prize picks. Use the code 5FIVE. Get in for football season. They've got like 60 new categories now. They literally have completions in the first 10 minutes, 10 passes, and all kinds of stuff. You can combine different players, all kinds of things you can do. Go to prizepicks.com, use the code 5FIVE. Get that initial deposit matched up to $100. And now, today's episode. Welcome to 5 On The Floor, a daily insider show on the Miami Heat and the NBA, featuring Ethan Skolnick, Greg Sylvander, and Alex Toledo, plus others from the 5 Reasons Sports Network. Welcome back to 5 On The Floor. Here's today's floor plan. I'm Ethan Skolnick. You can follow me at EthanJSkolnick on 5 Reasons Sports. I got Greg Sylvander. You can follow me at Greg Sylvander. Brian Fonseca. You can follow me at BrianFonsecaNY. Also, by the way, he's taking over the New York Post, apparently. Somebody needs to. And you can follow our guy, EternalBast, as well. Although, it's BastEternal on Twitter, right? No, it's EternalBast. I always get it confused. It's the email address and all the rest of it. Eternal anchors a lot of our programming on playback. He and Matt Hannafin, by the way, I want to give a shout out to Matt. Not that I'm in California. He's been getting up for every FIBA game on playback. He just stays up all night. So, he looks miserable. We apologize for that, Matt. But you'll hear him on 5 On The Floor as well. He's part of our extended family. And I feel like I'm violating all the child labor laws. All right. Let's get to it. We're going to talk about, speaking of young people, we're going to talk about Nikola Jovic today. Nikola Jovic advanced to the finals of FIBA, something that the FIBA World Cup, something that the U.S. team could not do. The U.S. team eliminated with their expulsion as their assistant coach. We will never speak of that again. They were eliminated from contention for the championship by Germany. And then, they lost to Canada with some of their core players missing. And Brian, I'm going to start with you on that. And then, we'll get to Jovic. Because, Brian, you have been more on top of FIBA, I think, than anybody in the country. What the hell happened with the U.S. and what lessons did it teach us before we get to Jovic? That you cannot throw talent together anymore and just expect to walk out of there with the world championship. This is the first time in over 50 years that the United States did not make or did not medal in back-to-back World Cup tournaments. OK, that's the first time in over 50 years that that's happened. I woke up this morning because I still have to actually re-watch the game because I was not getting up before 45 for the USA versus Canada. So, I'm going to re-watch it right before football starts. And from what I did see, because I did catch some of the overtime stuff, first of all, that game going into overtime was not something that the sports books expected. But USA, listen, they don't have a lot of excuses. They don't have any excuses, in my opinion, because all up and down the tournament, as I've been saying everywhere else, everyone's missing people. Lithuania is missing Devonta Savonis. They beat Team USA. Latvia is missing Kristaps Porzingis. They still got to the quarterfinals. There are teams all over the tournament. Spain's missing Ricky Rubio, who was the MVP of the last tournament. They couldn't get out of the second round. Jokic didn't play. Serbia is missing seven or eight guys on their team. Including the league MVP. Well, the finals MVP. Right, Nikola Jokic and Micic and Nemanja Bialica and Boban Marjanovic. And none of these guys are on the Serbian team right now. And they still made it to the finals, which I want to get into that portion of it in a second. But with Team USA, there's just no excuses at this point. You need to take the World Cup more seriously. It's a better tournament than the Olympics. You have 32 teams, 32 nations represented in the FIBA World Cup. Only 12 in the Olympics, which are going to be next year. But Americans treat the Olympics as if it's a bigger deal, because they've been conditioned to do that. Because when the Dream Team was formed, it was formed for the 1992 Olympics, not necessarily for the World Cup. So we just think that here in America, the Olympics is all that matters and the World Cup doesn't, where everyone else, everywhere else, they're taking everything seriously. And you take every international competition seriously, in my opinion. Seems like they just threw together a B-plus team of nice guys. And Grant Hill was selling to us from Team USA. This is a team that could win the whole thing. This is a team that's built for this tournament. The cohesion, the chemistry, and all this stuff was sold to us. They were the wide betting favorites, minus 125 heading into the tournament. Second was France at plus 900. They were not even close to anybody else. And they lost. Didn't even medal. We'll get to Jovic next. Who would you say increased their stock or improved their reputation in this other than Anthony Edwards, who's the obvious one? Eric Spoelstra. Well, apparently not. Well, maybe, I guess, because maybe if he'd been the head coach, but I don't know that Kirk could have done much more with a group that he actually had once it was put together. But I guess, Brian, I mean, did anybody else improve their reputation? Yes. Well, Austin Reeves, because he now is probably primed to challenge Tyler Hero for best white American NBA player in the world right now. Tyler's a negative asset, though. Don't you forget that? I'm just kidding. Tyler Hero is better than Austin Reeves. We're kidding. But I mean, Austin Reeves is probably like the guy, I guess. But I mean, and Mikhail Bridges is probably one where, you know, people are going to pick him to be an all star this year. We'll see what. But, you know, I want to ask you about Bridges specifically, though, because that's an interesting one to me, because he's he went from a guy who was considered like perfect, perfect glue guy on a really good team, right to getting the reps with the Nets as a lead guy and having some sensational games. I mean, one of them was against the Heat. Actually, two against the Heat. And then and then, you know, he tailed off a little bit efficiency wise as the season went on, as it seems seems to figure him out a little bit. The burden became a little greater. And it looked like some of that happened here, too. I don't know. I mean, did maybe he's being a little bit overrated as far as being that guy? Is that fair? Well, we don't know if he could do it for the entire NBA season. I have questions as to whether or not he can. And one of the reasons to bring it back to the Heat, actually, is that we've been talking about Tyler Hero being a great fit in Brooklyn. One of the reasons for that is because we're skeptical that Mikhail Bridges can sort of carry the offensive load there and could use a Tyler Hero or somebody like that as his co-star to carry that team offensively, because Ben Simmons isn't going to do it. We forget that he's on that roster. Johnson looks he didn't look ready. He didn't look like he belonged in this tournament. Spencer Dinwiddie is probably their next best option after Mikhail Bridges. And there are going to be times where he's going to be the number one option because Mikhail Bridges doesn't have it going. But Mikhail Bridges is going to be a sexy all-star pick this year. I'm skeptical as to what he's going to do over the course of an entire season. I think he's between what he showed in Phoenix and what he showed in Brooklyn in terms of offensive output and just as a two-way player. And I give eternal credit because he was somebody saying that he thought Mikhail Bridges could sort of be a number one-ish type of guy. I was like, dude, you're crazy. We still don't know if he's like a true number one, but we know that he's better than what he showed at Phoenix at the very least. And I guess to me, the two guys whose reputations took a hit here are Brandon Ingram and Jared Jackson Jr. Those would be the two. And Steve Kerr. Well, yes. But I'm talking about as far as players. I mean, Banchero, it's too early to make any kind of a judgment there. Brunson kind of did what Brunson does. He's not going to set up a ton of guys, but he had moments. Halliburton, I thought, had moments. I don't know that he'll necessarily be on the next team. We'll see. But to me, Ingram's inability to kind of find his way and then Jackson's complete inability to make any kind of an impact. Like that's I mean, just we could talk about the rebounding or anything, but I mean, he just didn't do a damn thing, really, for most of this tournament. And it seems like they had a miscast. And I feel like the reputation that was boosted the most in this tournament was BAM out of bios. No, right. But anyway, let's get to it. And I'll go to Eternal on this one. As you as you look at Jovich and the end of this, he's emotional. You know, I mean, just lost in the finals, NBA finals, too, although that one I don't think was quite as emotional as this one. But he gets all the way to finals. We talked about it on playback and what this means to these guys. But I actually think and Brady just put this on on or off the floor feed about things that he needs to improve this this this offseason as he goes forward. And he mentioned he said the two things I think he needs an in-between game to add to his offensive bag. He too often gets stuck in that range where it isn't a deep midrange or a layup at the rim, a floater, a short pull up hook changes things. And he also said, number two, and I'll get into this a little bit later with a little bit of intel. He says a defined role watching him drift into so many different things in this offense shows Miami needs to lay out a blueprint for what they need for him from him. And they will. What did you take from some of the he had great moments in this tournament and the other moments where they didn't utilize him very much? Yeah. You know, one of the things that kind of stuck out to me, I don't know how many of our listeners or how many of you guys caught it, but on Friday, it was either Friday or yesterday. There was a press conference with the coach of the Serbian team. He talked about Jovich specifically and how he spent a lot of time like earning his teammates respect, how he spent a lot of prep time getting ready for games and things of that nature. And those are just really glowing reports, right? You know, those are the things that those are the intangibles that screams a Miami Heat player. And if you're getting that from the national team coach, which just to kind of put it in perspective and context for a lot of our listeners for non-American players playing for your national team means a lot. It means a whole lot because it means that you are carrying the pride of your country on your chest, right? Like it's not about the name on the back is literally about the name on the front because they have such a long history with their country. And so as you see the emotion from Jovich and other players, whether they're losing or they're winning, it means a whole lot to be on that stage. Whether it's the World Cup, like Brian said, any type of international competition is going to mean something. And so to kind of wrap all that up, as we put that into context, Jovich started for his national team at the age of 20. At the age of 20, he started for his national team. That means a lot. Forget whatever agendas you got for Miami Heat, for the NBA, or whatever. The fact that he earned enough respect for their coach, who isn't a young coach. He's been coaching their team for a long time. It doesn't happen often. You're right. It doesn't happen. So the fact that he earned the respect to not only start, but to contribute, and they played him at times late in games, and he had big games for them. Of course, now, obviously, there were times where his teammates looked him off. Not kind of like a disrespect thing, but he is 20. So to kind of put some balance on things, the fact that he was there to kind of earn and gain those minutes is going to translate into training camp, into preseason, into season, because it showed that Jovich can contribute to a winning team, not only on offense. He had some great development defensively over the time of the tournament. I really think that's going to benefit him having to play this kind of shifting role, too. Because again, with the Heat, nothing is in stone. And Greg, that pivots back to a conversation I know you and Brady had on a podcast, which may or may not post before this one does. But getting into the rotation, and I'll get into more of this on a playback, which I'm going to talk about in a second, but was presented to me by a prominent Heat official, what they think the rotation could look like if they don't have Dane by the time the training camp starts. And again, that's what we're going to devote an entire playback to tomorrow. So I don't want to give all of that away. But the rotation that was thrown out to me was kind of similar to something we've discussed a lot, which was with their current roster, they're looking at potentially Hero and Jay Rich in the backcourt, which is the way I view it. Jimmy at the three, obviously, Bam at the five, and Kevin Love at the four for stability and to put kind of a bigger body next to Bam. And then your three core bench guys right now would be Kyle Lowry, Duncan Robinson, and Caleb Martin. Not necessarily in that order, but that both Kyle and Caleb could be players that finish games. And Kyle for stability, but that essentially, you know, Spoh is going to try to preserve him as much as possible. And we do not think he's going to start. And the heat official I spoke to does not think Spoh will start him either for that reason. So I think we're on to it. Then the ninth man essentially would be your backup big, which is Thomas Bryant or Orlando Robinson. And but then your 10th man, your swing guy and the guy who plays because Jimmy sits or one of the other guys sit right or there's injuries is a competition essentially between Jovich, Hawkins and Haywood Highsmith. OK, before we get to the young guards who could get into the mix here is two ways. That's a deep rotation. It's one of the reasons they're not panicked to go. Yeah, they weren't panicked to go get a Christian would. And they're not panicked to go get a Kelly Bray is was said to me. The list is the list. We've been looking at the same damn list now for the last month. Right. OK, it did. The list doesn't change. We keep looking at it. The same names. OK, now these guys are changing. But I think that that's the question here with Jovich, because if he's here like they're going to be fans who will look at this and they say, OK, look at the way you play in FIBA. Look at the way you play in summer league. Let's plug him in as a starter. They're not going to do that. Kevin Love is more, you know, or maybe even Haywood Highsmith or Caleb Martin. But more likely, Kevin Love is going to be the starter at the four. And they're going to play more of a traditional big behind BAM. So that's more of Orlando Robinson or Thomas Bryant. I think it's going to be like they'll give Thomas Bryant the first opportunity. And then sometimes what happens with Thomas Bryant is he gets played out of the role. We saw that with the Lakers and other places. And then maybe Orlando Robinson's the guy who plays him out of it. But the Jovich is going to be more of a wild card. And I just wonder, as we're talking about him trying to find role and Brady talking about him trying to find role, how that works. Right. Yeah. How do they define a role for him in that circumstance? It's tough because he kind of they always have been, you know, next man up means a lot of things. It also means, like, just do whatever the hell needs to be done to to impact winning at that moment in time. Fans are going to be in an emotional conundrum when they see that the two young players that kind of we focused on all summer in Jovich and Hawkeyes because they've been the Dame talk, you know, like components basically for them to be in the in the running for 10th man on the team. I think fans probably expect to see young players play a little bit more. And I would say there's still a lot of basketball left to be played. And there's a training camp left in a preseason left. So who knows who pops and ends up elsewhere? I just can't move off the position. I have a feeling that Spurs is going to trust Haywood Highsmith more than a 10th man minutes type of role. I just have a feeling he's going to play his way into more than that. I think it's a situation where they're going to be able to at least outline for him what they're asking him to do offensively and defensively. And it's going to be more about staying ready and being able to deal with what he just dealt with in that tournament, kind of being on one day and focused. And then the next day, you're maybe not playing as much. How do you handle that? And so I just think this tournament actually just preps him for what he's going to have to like young players got to get in where they fit in. And he is no exception to that rule. But it is going to make fans heads hurt a little bit when they see that these guys that we've either hyped up around the draft or during summer league or during FIBA aren't really playing a ton for the heat. And it just means that they're deeper than they were a year ago. Yeah, I think they definitely are deeper. And Brian, when I look at it, I say, OK, when you look at those three guys, Hawkeyes, Jovich, Highsmith, it seems to me like they're understudy players to a certain degree as you manage this season. So to me, Hawkeyes is an understudy behind Jimmy that, you know, he's in position. If Jimmy is going to miss some time that you can put Hawkeyes in and for limited minutes, maybe do some Jimmy like things. I think Jovich is the understudy for Kevin Love to get Kevin Love to the postseason in one piece. And it's going to be like, OK, we're on a road five game road trip. And, you know, Kayo, you know, his back's bugging him a little bit. I'm not Kayo. I'm sorry, Kevin Love. Kayo may be here at some point, too. OK, but but Kevin, you know, his back's bothering me a little bit. And, you know, Jovich is going to get some of those some of those opportunities. I think there could also be a surprise where maybe, you know, Bam, who doesn't miss a ton of time typically, but if he does miss some time, we expect Thomas Bryant to get those minutes. But that, you know, maybe he does, but also maybe Jovich works into that rotation. And then Highsmith to me is the Caleb insurance to some degree in terms of some of the things that he does. But I also agree with Greg that if it comes down to a 10th man at times and it's going to be, OK, we need someone to go in there in eight minutes and change the rhythm of this game, that that Spo will go to Highsmith, which we were we didn't know why he didn't do it more during this postseason, frankly. But I still think that that's what would happen. How do you see it? Like, where do you see that role? Well, I wonder, because, like, I feel like in the Heat's developmental system, he'll probably be Kelly Olenek ish utilizing that way, which there are some parallels to how he was used in the World Cup, where some days he's really the focus. Some days he's not. It even changes not even day to day, but game to game, quarter to quarter and even possession by possession at times. And late in the fourth quarter, there were times where he was just standing in the corner. But on the defensive end, he draws a charge to which I then said, oh, now it's going to be Damian Lillard and picks for Nicola Jovic because the Heat value him more. But like the Nicola Jovic thing is interesting because Turner brought up a point that I wanted to hit earlier where him starting on the Serbian national team and going to the World Cup finals is not nothing. Right. Serbia does have a new coach that they hired in 2021, Kari Pesic, who has been running teams since twenty twenty one this cycle. But Serbia has had a couple other recent teams that reached finals of the World Cup and the Olympics in twenty fourteen and twenty sixteen. The twenty fourteen team that was a Milos Teodosic that was with Nemanja Bialica. They had their young dude on the team was Bogdan Bogdanovic, who's twenty two years old. Right. And they put him in big spots and he was averaging like twelve, two and three, whatever, whatever. And then in twenty sixteen, they had another young dude off the bench who was twenty one years old, who was Nicola Jokic, who they had in big spots also, whatever, whatever. So I'm not saying Nicola Jovic is going to be like Nicola Jokic, but to have entrusted him with also the starting role, a starting role on this team, in this program. And I don't think the Heat are looking at the World Cup being like, oh, this is only the World Cup, because if they didn't value it, Eric Spoelstra wouldn't be there as an assistant who's not even the head coach of, say, the Philippines or something like that, or Team USA, obviously, as an assistant who's there. Right. So I feel like everyone's going to sort of regroup and assuming Nicola Jovic is on this team, which I don't know what to assume at this point, because training camp, this is over and training camp is still a few weeks away. But we're going to see, I think Nicola Jovic used if he's still in Miami in a bunch of different ways. I'm looking at sort of the Kelly Olenek BAM blueprint if he plays significant time, which I don't know if he will. Maybe he earns that based off of this trip and what he did here. Maybe he comes back to training camp and it's a little bit ahead of what they expect, which would be a good problem to have, assuming he's still there. But I think that's sort of what you'd be looking at first, somebody who can score, somebody who can stress the floor next to BAM, who can rebound a little bit, but isn't particularly a great rebounder for a big book, can get seven rebounds here or there, six rebounds here or there, but also has a playmaking element that the Heat seemingly want next to BAM. Like Kevin Love is not Arvitas Savonis, but he's a good passer for a big man and always has been. Right. And it's like that's sort of what you're looking at next to BAM, somebody who can shoot, somebody who can pass, somebody who's lengthy. And it's often been a white dude, not for nothing. Like I have noticed that part of it as well. Not for nothing, but that's been the case with a lot of their players recently. I'll say this, though. It's not it's not for nothing either that Eric Spolster was out there and was probably communicating regularly with the Serbian coaching staff about Jovic and that they did meet out there. And I think that that matters and that they typically will will try to get engaged in giving a plan to the coaches that work with their players. And so I would anticipate that like that likely that likely happened. We're going to break in a second. I just and I want to get into kind of where this goes as far as his value and whether or not that increased during this and kind of tip off some of the stuff we're going to talk about this week regarding Dame. But I think that you mentioned the Jokic thing, and I'm curious, what would have happened if Jokic had played in this tournament? Like would Jovic had played next to him very much? The minutes certainly would have been down. They probably win this tournament, I would think maybe reasonably easily as it turned out. But I just I wonder what that would have looked like. But I do think that, you know, they went in there wanting to see how he would react to a bunch of different kinds of situations. And I think they got what they wanted. And that's that's how they they look at these things. And it's just like in summer league where they would put the ball in Max Drew's hands at the end of games just to see what that looked like. And then we would see that happen at times in the Eastern Conference finals, you know, so that there is a plan for all that. I have the KO comparison is a good one. I just think having Kevin Love directly there in the roster, I don't think it's a coincidence or an accident that they brought Kevin Love back in a mentor role, particularly when they have a young big who needs to learn how to play, how to play next to Bam and to have a guy in Kevin Love who has proven that he can do that, even if the numbers weren't always great last year. I would do want to mention a couple sponsors. Here are the five reasons Sports Network. And then we're going to go to the value question when it comes to Jovic and what was learned here. We want to mention it's hurricane season. If you haven't noticed, there are category fives out there. I would call our guy Danny at all pro construction builders today, like literally during the dolphin game, haven't put your hurricane doors and windows up. Okay. And you get 10% off. If you mentioned five reasons, we know again, hurricane season, always around the corner, always an issue down here. 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You will get your money like that's, that's important when you're gambling, right? Uh, and also you want to do it legally. So go to better edge.com. Use the code five RSN. All right. Eternal. I'll go to you first on this because you have been, uh, in the network, I would say the most adamant about not including this guy in a trade. Um, I'm going to say, you know, first out, uh, you know, I've spoken to some folks in the heat organization over the past couple of days. And, uh, we talked a little bit about it on playback, but I'm going to hold most of it for a playback session, uh, a state of Dame playback session that I'm going to host, uh, Monday night, uh, starting at seven 30 Easter. So make sure you check that out and I'll go through everything that I've learned and kind of where this, this situation stands. Uh, but obviously look, the, the, the key thing I can say here just for the purposes of this discussion is that there have been no discussions, uh, of, of merit and note since right after, uh, summer league. Um, and I'll get into the reasons why and when those could resume on playback. But I can just tell you that if you've heard that, none of that is accurate because they're not dangling anybody. Okay. They're basically waiting for Portland to get their ---- together, uh, and come back to them. I mean, that's, that's the, the most, that's the clearest way that I can put it. Okay. So they're not looking to give up but they may have to, if they want to make a deal. I mean, that's just the way that this goes. Are you in the untouchable camp paternal after what you've seen? So one of the things I wanted to touch on before you went to break as we was talking about like, um, the Kelly old fit, the Kevin love kind of fit is, I think we got the best possible, um, kind of look of what could be for Jovich in this finals. A couple of times during the game, he matched up with Franz on both the offense and defensive. And that's Franz Wagner. Who's Orlando's very impressive young player. Right. Um, and he's another guy that's like, uh, physically and skillfully kind of like in the same range as yoga or both of them standing at 16, six 11, both of them having guard skills and things of that nature. And one of the things that I think you wanted to see from yoga is can he replicate what France can do defensively? Because France is a very, very solid defensive, defensive player. And a couple of times we saw, um, doing this world cup run for yoga that he could guard guard out on the wing. Um, and he could to some, some extent guard in the post. And so he had a play today where he was guarding in the Schroeder, um, from the top of the key, all the way down to the, to the rim. And he had a great stop on the play. So I think that yoga has that potential to be what Franz is basically, you know, and replicate some things of his nature. I put in the chat that, um, and I will be the first to say, and I'm sure Brian isn't far behind that. A lot of what we saw, uh, in the younger years for them of being able to guard one through five defensively, I think that yoga can be that one through five player offensively. Um, and just, just that all around just jack of all trades that you can put out there and he can do the winning things to help you. Um, but like you said, Ethan, with that, I think that Jovich has stepped into that untouchable. I will put that flag in the ground. I will put that flag in the ground because I respect it again to be 20 years old and to be counted on by your national team. These, these guys do not take that for granted. Like the, the executives of putting these teams together, the coaching staff of putting these things together, do not take that for granted. And Serbia isn't, you know, one of these lesser teams country wise, they have built a prestige. And so for him to be, even though this is his service beating for him to earn a starting spot, that means something. So I think that yoga has shown, um, that at a very early age that he has what it takes to contribute now. And then when you project forward, he could be something really, really, really special. And I think that if you can, if there are avenues for you to keep him, then you do what you can to keep him. Now, obviously Dame is a top 75 player of all time. Um, he is a very electric player that can move the needle and put you over the top and help you win a championship. So no one is saying that you don't trade yoga for a day if it comes to that. But if you can do whatever you can to keep him, you do whatever you can to keep yoga on the team. Let's look at it from two perspectives here and then we'll close. Uh, I'm going to give, let me see who I give what here. I'm going to get Brian Portland, your Joe Cronin. Sorry. And Greg, I'm going to give you Pat Riley, Andy Ellsberg and, uh, and the heat front office here. Okay. With what you saw in the world cup, Brian would, if you're Portland, does it change your perspective and you, and you have, you know, not to set you up too much here, but you have no young bigs in your system. Like literally like the whole, I mean, you've got, you got three interesting young guards, right? And that's resigned Jeremy Grant to a little. I mean, right. I mean, nothing zip zip. You've got Nirkich on a contract and you've got Jeremy Grant on a contract. And honestly, you want to unload one and you probably eventually you're going to want to unload the other, right? Like it, did you look at this? Are you, do you consider Nicola Jovich a good asset? Like, is this. If I'm Portland, I'm probably stubborn and probably don't want to do anything. Probably don't want to pick up the phone and probably just, you know, whatever, whatever happens happens. But if I'm speaking on behalf of Portland or if I'm consulting them rather, and I'm telling them what they should think, uh, yeah, I mean, they should look at the Nicola Jovich situation and be like, Hey, there could be a starting lineup in your future of Anferty, Simon, Shaden, Sharp, Scoot, Henderson, Nicola Jovich and some center. Because I don't know how long Jeremy Grant's going to be on that team at this point. I don't know why he would be there for an extended period of time and use of Nirkich. I guess he'd be the starting center for now because nobody wants him. Because I also think, and I've said this from the beginning, if the heat, for example, if they even got this far into talks, which I'm sure they didn't, if the heat said, and they don't need to say this, if they said, Hey, we're willing to take back use of Nirkich, this deal would be done already. Like there's, there's no doubt in my mind about that, but why would they do that? But that's really to say, Portland's trying to get off the use of Nirkich. I think when Nicola Jovich though, like, yes, I think Portland and a lot of other teams should be looking at this. Like, Hey, uh, one he's in the heats, he was in the heat developmental system for a season. That's not nothing, but two being in this spot, the World Cup does mean something because we saw the high level play from other teams, even though they were shorthanded. Um, I put out the list of MVPs and Dennis Schroeder has joined that list. That is probably the worst player on that list while still being a good player. Because that list includes Dirk Davisky, Kyle Gasol, Kevin Durant. Um, the dude who is in Dallas right now on a max contract next to Luka Doncic, who I don't want to mention, you know, like, like if I'm Portland, you have to look at these things and be like, Hey, uh, Nicola Jovich is somebody who offensively, as Eterno said, could play multiple positions. Um, he has some point forward in him. Um, he could shoot. He is very interesting in terms of a skillset. And honestly, if you're looking at Portland's roster, Scoot Henderson's, I think going to be the best player of that group and Shaden Sharp would be good. I think Anthony Simons is either is what he is, or is very close to it. The COVID Nicola Jovich provides different things in all of them on the size alone. I'm not saying he's going to be better than any of them or all of them or whatever, but yeah, like he's somebody you should want back. That being said, if I'm Miami, um, while I would include him in the deal, I'm not sure that I would want to do it. Greg. So how do you look at this? Cause I didn't let Brian be in Miami. He had to be Joe Cronin. Yeah. I just got that last bit in there. That's okay. Well, go ahead, Greg. Well, considering what our superstars have said to us, we definitely are going to make the move, but yesterday's price is not today's price. That's exactly how that goes. Uh, I think he did nothing but raise his value and the heat will make sure to acknowledge that the next time they talk to Portland and the whole league will acknowledge it. And, um, but still in all, I know that eternal says untouchable in this type of situation, nobody, but Jimmy and bam are untouchable. And I think that's fair, but I think all of this plays into this. And this is a tease for the playback that I'm going to do tomorrow night. So get the app and join us there. And we'll promote it on, on, uh, on Twitter and elsewhere is that this off season in a lot of ways has gone as well for the heat as it could, um, in terms of maintaining leverage, uh, that, that, you know, if Portland's hope here, not with, I think Portland's primary hope is, and I'll touch on this more tomorrow is again, for some mystery team to emerge, which I can tell you the heat can't figure out what that team is either. They listened to the podcast we did about the mystery teams and they basically came to the conclusion that the ones that we mentioned are the ones that could be, but that none of them likely will be. Okay. And so, uh, that's the first thing. So I think Portland's first bet was some mystery team emerges and maybe it's because of some injury, like a drew holiday gets hurt or something like that. You're basically hoping for someone to get hurt. And some team is desperate enough to appease their primary star. And so they make a move like that, right? That's to keep their primary star happy. But I think the second thing that they were counting on, and I've said this repeatedly is that there would be chaos with the heat. There would be dissatisfaction with their current roster. There would be dissension with players who were talked about in trades all off season. And also that there would be no growth for many of their young players that the heat would be panicked to make some kind of a move. None of those things have occurred. None of those things have occurred. Uh, Miami made good low budget additions and Josh Richardson and Thomas Bryant to kind of, you know, make up for the losses of, of Shrews and Vincent, not specifically Vincent's position, but they, they padded the rotation, uh, and added depth. And additionally, they, they're, they're young players, uh, ha second thing is you're not hearing negativity from the heroes, the Robinsons, the Lowry's, the guys have been in the trade talks. In fact, with Tyler, it seems like it's being channeled exactly the right way where it would benefit the heat if he actually stays. And then the third thing is the growth of the young players. Well, I mean, Jovich has done everything and more and Hawkins is literally having coffee and sitting in the sauna with Jimmy Butler. So, so it's like, you, you look at it from the heat's perspective and you're like, we don't need to do anything. We want to do something. We know that that's the piece that can get us over the top. And we have to think about more than just the East, but there is no great team. And this was confirmed, uh, with me when I spoke to this person yesterday, who said the same thing last year, there is no great team, uh, this, this time around, there are a lot of good teams, just like there were last year. And I can just say this, the person I spoke to said, nobody really got better. None of the good teams in the league got better. Phoenix is the only one that you can argue for. And there wouldn't be a huge surprise if they get out of the West, but they didn't get markedly better. If you look at some of the depth losses that they still have, and some of the, the, the fit, uh, issues that they may have is ain't going to play hard. Uh, do they have a point guard? How are they going to how is Durant going to stay healthy? You look at, uh, at Memphis what's Moran's situation. I mean, they've added Marcus smart, but what, what, what's going on there? Uh, the Clippers, are they healthy? No. Uh, who knows Milwaukee didn't really do anything to their team. Boston's different. Are they better? I don't think they're better. No, actually. Right. Philadelphia better. No, with a circus. Um, so you look at the top echelon teams and then Denver, which to me is still, is the favorite should be the favorite. They lost their sixth and seventh men. And you don't worry about the West. So you have to worry about the rights, but you worry about the West to win a championship. True. And that's where the Dame thing comes in. I firmly believe. And I think they believe they can win the East with their current roster. It's a better roster. It's a better us. They won it last year when it mattered. Right. They finished eighth, right? Finish seventh, really, but then eighth and almost dropped out of playing, but they won the East. That's when it mattered. They won the East, right? They beat the two teams. They were supposed to have to try to beat to get to the finals. It's winning the championship that you need a Dame Lillard. And I, so I think that's where the discussion is now, but that's not desperation because you don't have to do that. Now you could do it in February and still win the championship with Dame Lillard, because you have a hall of fame level coach who can put all that stuff together in short order. If you need to answer that point with Portland, this is the, the, the key point for me is that Damian Lillard does not gain value. The longer Portland waits to do this price goes down because they're there. They could be banking on a team. Like you said, Ethan, for, you know, to emerge because of an injury and what have you, but Damian Lillard has more time to get disgruntled, more time to age, more time to settle into this contract. Portland doesn't pick a direction has more uncertainty. What's going to happen here. And it's going to be question after question, after question in media day and in preseason games and in press conferences throughout the season. If they don't trade Damian Lillard, where the heat appear to be more content about where they are. I think Portland needs to understand like, Hey, just complete the full pivot for the sake of your organization and your fan base, because Damian Lillard does not gain value. The longer Portland waits to make the straight happen. Just wait until he's not a hundred percent engaged and pulls a hamstring or something like that. And is out for four to six weeks. And then we see where the value is. I, you have an asset that at this point is only going to decline. Dame is a tremendous player. That's why the heat won him. He just coming off his best offensive season. It's also had injury problems in recent years. His contract is enormous. He is entering his mid thirties. Just do the damn deal already. All right. Thanks to Brian. Thanks to eternal. Thanks to Greg. We have a bunch of episodes backed up, so make sure you check them out. And again, join us on playback Monday night, seven 30. We'll give you the state of Dame. There's a lot more there that I download the app. Oh, download the app. Download the app that makes internal very happy. And yeah, exactly. And Matt Haddison, wherever he is, hopefully he's sleeping. Have a good one. Thank you for listening to the five on the floor on the fire regional sports network.