Have you seen Mary Poppins?

I often think about this movie (the original, not the remake) in a basketball context despite the complete absence of leather round balls. Why? Well, Poppins had the original bag:

She could materialize lamps, hat stands, giant mirrors, and even potted trees out of that magic suitcase. There were never repeats; it was always something novel.

Miami’s Jaime Jaquez Jr. must have visited the same haberdashery because few rookies come into the league with a comparable array of moves.

Jaquez is one of the most aesthetically pleasing players in the NBA, from his magnificent mane of flowing hair to the Kobe-inspired midrange footwork. Luckily for Miami, there’s plenty of substance to his style, too. Although he averaged a deceiving 11.9 points per game as a rookie, there were times when he was injury-riddled Miami’s most reliable offensive force (see his 31-point Christmas Day performance for the best example). But for the Heat to regain their status as an Eastern Conference power, he must reach even deeper into his bag and find new tricks.

Despite a questionable three-pointer (we’ll get to that), Jaquez finds ways to excel off the ball. He’s already the savviest non-Butler cutter on the team, folding space and time like H.G. Wells to pop up in the perfect place:

Jaquez also uses his cuts to open space for his teammates. I adore this play, in which Jaquez alertly realizes that Jayson Tatum isn’t watching him, cuts hard, draws in Al Horford, receives the rock, and fires it off to Dru Smith in one sprinting, spinning, no-look motion:

On-ball is where Jaquez has made his mark, though, and the Jimmy Butler comparisons are easy but apt. He has a good handle for his size (conservatively listed at 6’7”, 225 lbs), but coach Erik Spoelstra still raised some eyebrows by installing Jaquez as the point guard in many fourth quarters. Jaquez generally delivered. He ranked in the 62nd percentile for points per possession as the pick-and-roll ballhandler, an excellent mark for a rookie. He’s equally liable to take the ball to the rack himself as he is to spray to an open shooter, and on a Miami team that lacked healthy dribble-drive threats, his rim pressure often kept the offense afloat.

But Jaquez’s most enjoyable — and effective — play type is the post-up. Heat possessions that featured a Jaquez post-up (including passes) averaged an outrageous 1.26 PPP (albeit on just 97 possessions). Like the best South Beach pina coladas, Jaquez is strong and smooth, giving defenders brain freeze with an array of spins, half-spins, shoulder checks, up-fakes, fadeaways, oopsie-doodles, and other random hyphenates:

His passing out of the post was even more damaging, particularly once teams started doubling him down low. Jaquez’s height and natural playmaking instincts give him an advantage, and he possesses rare patience for any NBA player, not just a rookie. He flashed a knack for the close-quarters interior passing that the Heat feature more than almost any other team (a necessity, given their lack of shooting):

Jaquez can net buckets as a driver, too. He loves to bash into people with his broad shoulders and score right over them with little running half-hooks, but he has counters. Not many players in the league can rummage through their bag and pull out a sexy two-footed hop-back:

I’d like to take that shot to dinner and a movie. 

Jaquez’s grinding physicality leads to loads of free-throw vacations. Jaquez was in the 86th percentile for foul-drawing for his position, an unusually high mark for a rookie in particular.

Make no mistake: Jaquez isn’t a perfect offensive player. His shot selection wasn’t ideal, as he traded open threes for tricky attempts in floater range. The rookie took nearly a third of his shots from the short midrange — one of the highest proportions in the league. He’s good at those! But they are difficult by nature and made more so by the Heat’s spacing concerns, which Jaquez exacerbates.

Shooters tell on themselves. The reason for all those middies is that Jaquez lost faith in his three-pointer as the season went on. Jaquez’s deep ball isn’t broken, but he only hit 32% from beyond the arc as a rookie. Young guys often struggle from the deeper NBA line, but Jaquez also was a relatively reluctant shooter, launching a below-average 3.4 attempts per 36 minutes. Defenses grew more comfortable helping off of him as the year went on. Although Jaquez found ways to punish sagging defenders with his cuts and off-ball movement, he’ll need to juice his volume and accuracy from deep if he wants to take another offensive step.

The silver lining is that Jaquez’s splits are promising. He averaged 14 points and 35% from deep during the first half of the season, but a nagging groin injury hampered him for much of the rest of the campaign. The injury contributed to the inevitable rookie wall, and Jaquez faltered a bit down the season’s stretch.

High-leverage rookies often struggle as a season finishes, worn from the daily grind of an 82-game season and the increased physicality at the NBA level. Optimists like me believe his first half is a better representation of what he can do, and luckily for Jaquez, the Heat have a long and storied history of building up role-player three-point shots.

Jaquez’s offensive ceiling is All-Star level if he puts on a rangefinder. However, it’s still uncertain how good he can be defensively (for what it’s worth, both EPM and LEBRON rated him as a slightly better defensive-than-offensive player).

He’s far from a trainwreck on that end, but he doesn’t possess the lateral quickness to be a lockdown perimeter player. His biggest issue (one that’s fixable) is that he’s so concerned about getting blown by that he gives up too much space for easy step-backs and pull-ups:

Jaquez doesn’t have the sort of quick jump essential for shot blockers, and it often feels like he’s a bit ground-bound defensively. But give him a running start, and he can surprise you:

Jaquez’s smarts shine through defensively. After initial rookie struggles, Jaquez found his place in Miami’s complex schemes. He averaged a steal per game and was usually in the right place at the right time. He doesn’t have the physical tools to be an isolation stopper, but by the end of the season, he became a solid team defender with the potential to become a good one.

Being a jack of all trades is more critical in Miami than in most places, as coach Erik Spoelstra loves guys who can do a little of everything. It allows the Heat to run similar plays for multiple players, confusing defenses; Jaime filled the Kyle Lowry, Jimmy Butler, and Bam Adebayo roles at various points in the season. The flip side is that Jaquez isn’t elite — yet — at any one thing besides his post-play, which is not as relevant for a team that will almost always feature Adebayo in crunch time.

Regardless, Jaquez is primed for a sophomore leap if Summer League is any indication. Cerebro Sports’ C-RAM metric rated him Vegas’ fourth-most productive player (min. two games played), and he averaged 26 points per game while shooting nearly 60% from the field and 3-for-7 from deep. The low volume of triples was the only concerning thing about his spectacular performance, but that can partially be explained by how much time he spent driving to the hoop (he also drew 16 free throws in his two contests).

But are the Heat ready for him to jump?

Miami has a gridlocked rotation with a lot of similar-caliber players. They always have injury issues, which would alleviate some of the playing time problems, but a healthy Heat squad won’t have many more touches available than last season. Butler, Adebayo, Terry Rozier, and Tyler Herro will likely all command the ball more. Even Kevin Love boasted a 21% usage rate last season compared to Jaquez’s 18%.

I’m not sure who starts for Miami next season. Adebayo and Butler are the only stone-cold locks. Rozier and Herro are talented but somewhat redundant, and one or the other may come off the cedar. If they both start, as I believe they will to begin the year, there is room for Jaquez to be a dark horse Sixth Man of the Year candidate as the Heat’s bench spark plug. If either guard slots into that reserve role, there might be room in the starting lineup for Jaquez next to Butler, Adebayo, and Nikola Jovic. (If Jaquez’s shot outperforms expectations, he may just straight-up snatch Jovic’s spot.)

For what it’s worth, Butler/Adebayo/Jaquez lineups performed adequately last season. Still, Butler and Jaquez lineups without Adebayo (usually featuring the stretchier Love at center) blew the doors off the league with a +12.1 net rating, in the 96th percentile, on over 1,100 possessions. The Heat will not (and shouldn’t) diminish Bam for Jaquez’s sake, but it shows the power of more shooting on the floor on Jaquez’s performance. Bam has been toying with the long ball, and Jaquez should improve, but it’s unlikely either becomes a proper floor stretcher next year.

Do the Heat view Jaquez as a fourth option with the starters? Maybe, but only if his shot becomes more threatening. Do they make him the point forward of the second unit? That makes sense, but it also might cap the impact he can have.

That said, Spoelstra is known for tinkering with lineups on a night-to-night basis, and I’d expect we’ll see all sorts of permutations. The Heat aren’t dumb; they know what they have in Jaquez and how good he can be. They didn’t make many offseason additions, banking on health and internal improvement, but most Miami players are currently known quantities. If the Heat make a deep playoff run next season, it will be because Jaquez did Mary Poppins proud by reaching deeper into his bag than ever before.