Miami Heat forward Jaime Jaquez Jr. was unquestionably one of the best rookies throughout the 2023-24 season, especially prior to his groin injury in January.

But the former No. 18 first-round pick wasn’t perfect. In an interview with the Miami Herald, Jaquez opened up about one particular skill that he wanted to improve most heading into his sophomore NBA season.

“My three-point shooting, that’s an area that I really wanted to improve,” Jaquez said. “I feel like I needed to improve if we wanted to, as a team, make the strides and jumps that we need to try to win a championship. And just really honing in on mechanics and getting a bunch of reps up.”

Jaquez, 23, averaged 11.9 points on 32.2 percent shooting from beyond the arc last season, where he took 29.0 percent of his attempts. It was reasonably low volume, but he shot 35.3 percent from deep pre-groin injury.

He finished fourth in Rookie of the Year voting and ninth in Sixth Man of the Year voting. He will likely be one of the players in consideration for one of the final three starting spots, though Jaquez operates in similar areas to both Jimmy Butler and Bam Adebayo.

Should he share a lineup with both, becoming a more efficient (spot-up) 3-point shooter is paramount for that lineup to fully function properly–also dependent on the context surrounding them otherwise. Without Caleb Martin the fold, Jaquez will likely be asked to play a bigger role.

He was an excellent cutter off-ball. He also operated well in the mid-post with beautiful footwork offensively and showed he was a capable on- and off-ball defender. His 3-point shooting form wasn’t always consistent. Though he flashed the confidence and willingness to get the attempts up when he was asked to, which is important.

How do you project his 3-point shooting this year? Let us know in the comments!