MIAMI — Even before last Monday’s tiebreaker drawing for position in the NBA draft, even before this playoff run comes to a close, the Miami Heat’s draft room appreciated the work ahead.
Now locked into, at least for the moment, the No. 18 selection in the June 22 draft, by virtue of winning a draw for that position over the Golden State Warriors and Los Angeles Clippers, the totality of the work to follow can begin to be appreciated.
Because once again, the little things will matter.
For most of this past season, with the Heat hard up against the punitive luxury tax, the 15th and final roster spot was left vacant.
For most of the past decade, an honorarium roster spot was set aside for Udonis Haslem.
Now seemingly locked into the tax for 2023-24 and with Haslem retiring, that means two more roster spots come into play for assistant general manager Adam Simon and the rest of the Heat’s draft-evaluation staff.
“This year you were at 14 most of the year,” he said. “So if you’re able to have 15, it’s an extra body.”
And without Haslem, two extra bodies.
While a case could be made that the Heat already have the equivalent of a 2023 first-round pick on the roster, considering the rawness of 19-year-old Serbian big man Nikola Jovic and the fact that last year’s No. 27 pick only appeared in 15 games, Simon’s job nonetheless is to find another prospect of intrigue, leaving it then to the likes of Pat Riley and Andy Elisburg to decide whether to again invest in such first-round youth.
And an investment will be required, with the No. 18 pick to receive a 2023-24 salary of $3.5 million, about $1 million more than the cost of adding a veteran free agent on the minimum-salary scale.
“We’ll see what happens leading up to the draft,” Simon said, “and then we’ll weigh taking the pick and see what other options are. But it’s good to have picks.”
And, Simon said, good to have a pick in this draft.
“It’s a good draft,” he said. “I still don’t know who all the players are until the list comes out. There were stragglers going back that we thought would be on the draft, in our range. But we’ll see. There’s still time.”
Riley’s publicly-stated perspective has been that the injection of a first-round pick every other draft cycle is sufficient to provide balance between proven and promising. And without an outgoing first-round draft obligation until 2025 to the Oklahoma City Thunder (at the earliest, when considering lottery protections), there is nothing precluding the Heat from trading their 2023 first-rounder ahead of the draft, at the draft, or exercising a pick and then dealing such a selection as part of a July trade at the start of the new salary-cap calendar.
Simon appreciates as much. But his job is to present the best possible options, in this case, at the moment, for No. 18.
“We prepare for the draft, and if something comes along, if there’s a good trade, we would look at that,” he said. “We’ve been close to trading. You prepare for both options. There’s never been an advance mandate of ‘we’re making the pick’ or ‘we’re trading the pick.’ We’ve never had those conversations.”
Indeed, during last year’s draft, according to a party familiar with the Heat approach, the Heat nearly dealt No. 27 (the Jovic pick) and Duncan Robinon to the Orlando Magic for Terrence Ross, in a move with an eye on reducing long-term payroll.
Whether the No. 18 pick has any currency is in question in a unique draft that has multiple teams with multiple first-rounds picks, perhaps looking to move off picks in the Heat range for pennies on the dollar.
The Indiana Pacers, for example, have a lottery pick, as well as selections Nos. 26 and 29. The Utah Jazz have a lottery pick and selections Nos. 16 and 28. The Houston Rockets have a lottery pick and No. 20. And the Brooklyn Nets have picks Nos. 21 and 22.
Still, for all the consternation about the Heat opting for a possible one-and-done playoff fate instead of the stacked-but-seductive odds of the lottery, the reality is that by missing the playoffs, the Heat likely would have drafted No. 14. Now, by winning their three-team draft tiebreaker Monday, they’re just four spots back at No. 18.
“And there is nothing better than being in the playoffs,” Simon said.
For now, it is a waiting game, taking time to savor the playoffs, then fully diving into the draft process, having already realized a bit of draft-order luck.
“You never know how it’s going to fall.” Simon said. “There’s years that we have guys rated low. Then, as you study them, you move them up. Maybe you didn’t realize how good that player was. There’s a lot of players that move up. I remember Donovan Mitchell moved up a lot. He was so good in his workouts. He didn’t have a great standout season at Louisville, but as you got to the draft process, the perspective changed.”
That was in 2017, when Mitchell went one spot ahead of the Heat’s selection, at No. 13 to the Jazz, with Bam Adebayo then taken by the Heat at No. 14.
“I think it’s premature to know where the sweet spot is,” Simon said.
