Maybe no Miami Heat player was more underwhelming in the 2024-25 season than forward Jaime Jaquez Jr. After a stellar rookie season that saw him finish fourth in the Rookie of the Year voting and ninth in the race for the Sixth Man of the Year hardware, he fell victim to a sophomore slump.
However, Jaquez can re-establish himself as an integral member of Miami’s young core with a strong third season in the league, and he’s looking to do just that. The 24-year-old said that last season, he put a lot of pressure on himself to make his 3-point attempts, but he’s no longer operating with that mentality.
“I just stopped putting pressure on myself to make or miss threes,” he said. “Make it, miss it, stop letting it affect me.
“I think last year I was trying to put so much emphasis and pressure on myself to try to just be that. And this year, I’m just focusing on my strengths, and one of those strengths is just getting downhill, creating for my team and sometimes for myself.”
Jaquez also indicated he’s looking to get downhill and drive the ball regularly in the 2025-26 campaign.
“I want to get downhill, get some drives going,” he said. “I think at the end of the day, getting downhill, whether it’s facilitating or scoring, trying to do those little things to help my team get in the best position possible.”
The former University of California Los Angeles star noted that he’s been playing basketball for a very long time despite the notion that he’s likely in just the fledgling stages of his NBA career.
“It’s a game I’ve been playing a lot, my entire life, really,” he said. “I think it just helps settle sometimes, especially with that second unit, a lot of young guys, just trying to get settled and move.”
Heat head coach Erik Spoelstra gushed over Jaquez’s talent for getting downhill and explained how he can use that skill to create scoring chances for himself and his teammates.
“He’s such a downhill force that he’s going to attract help-side defenders,” Spoelstra said. “So naturally he has to evolve and make enough plays to keep the defense honest, because we need him to be aggressive. And I don’t want to take away the aggressiveness.
“That’s probably his best offensive skill. He has great footwork and all those things. And make enough plays and you help generate some easy shots for other guys and it opens up your own driving angles.”
Encouragingly, Jaquez is “feeling a lot more comfortable” and working to learn from his errors as a second-year NBA player.
“I’m feeling a lot more comfortable,” he said. “I think just watching a lot of film, learning from a lot of my mistakes from last year, and just applying that to this year.”
Jaquez just recently gave Heat fans something to be excited about with a strong preseason performance against the Atlanta Hawks on Oct. 13. In a Miami loss, he dropped 17 points and converted half of his 14 shots from the field. He chipped in four rebounds, three assists and a blocked shot as well.
That wasn’t even Jaquez’s highest point total in a single game during Miami’s preseason stint, as he dropped 19 points on 6-of-8 shooting against the San Antonio Spurs a few days before on Oct. 8.
Plenty of signs — from his strong preseason performances to his comments about wanting to learn from his mistakes from last season — point to Jaquez having a bounce-back campaign in the 2025-26 season, but whether he ultimately will or not still remains to be seen.