South Florida Sun-Sentinel (Sunday)
The art of the draft stash
The lesson ahead of the Nov. 18NBADraft is not asmuch about investigatingwhothe MiamiHeat have brought in for workouts or set up for interviews, but ratherwhothe team has stashed out of view.
Says who? Says Chet Kammerer, the team’s draft guru emeritus, who, at this very moment, wellmay have, for all we know, theHeat’s next developmental project squirreled up at aMotel6 inDania Beach.
In reflecting on Duncan Robinson’s rise fromundrafted 2018 prospect toHeat rotation revelation, Kammerer explained to the Sun Sentinel the painstaking detail the teamwent through to emerge with the forward from Michigan in the minutes after that draft.
“We purposely didn’t bring him in,” Kammerer acknowledged of the team’s subterfuge, with theHeat without a 2018 second-round pick, as again is the case in this year’s draft.
Typically, if a team desires to get a look at a prospect, it lobbies the league to have such a player invited either to the smaller Portsmouth (Va.) Invitational for college seniors, or the larger Chicago combine. Robinsonwas part of neither. “He didn’t get invited to Portsmouth. He didn’t go to Chicago,” Kammerer said. “He had very fewworkouts.”
Instead, early on during the process, Kammerer became convinced of the possibility of something special. Not necessarily guaranteed, he clarified, but intriguing enough to revisit.
“I sawhimwork out early,” Kammerer said. “I sawhim, I said, ‘Guys, I’m telling you, if this guy is on the board [after the draft], he needs to be on our summer-league team.’ ”
Typically, teams without second-round picks buy their way into such selections, rather than allowa mostly disinterested party to take a flier.
That is another part of the Robinson story that tends to be overstated. TheHeat and Kammererwere in like with Robinson. But in love?
Not enough, Kammerer said, to go into the pockets of owner MickyArison. Recall, the 2018 offseason came after hugeHeat outlays toHassan Whiteside andTyler Johnson in 2016 free agency, and then money gone bad to DionWaiters and James Johnson in 2017 free agency.
“At the time,” Kammerer said, “I wasn’t thinking,‘Well, I’m going to ask ourownerfor$2million to get the pick to get him.’ ”
SoKammerer instead made sure he never used thewords “Duncan” and “Robinson” in the same draft-analysis sentence leading up to that draft (or at least made it sound thatway).
“Because I though hewas totally under the radar,” Kammerer said.
All the while, Kammererwas sellingRobinson’s representation on theHeat’s developmental program, a programthat helped shapeRobinson into one of the game’s most feared shooters, with a dedicated place on opposing scouting reports during the Heat’s run to this season’sNBA Finals.
“In the meantime,” Kammerer said, “Iwas in contact with his agent. We had already told him, ‘If he doesn’t get drafted, we want him.’ ”
For allKammerer has achieved with theHeat in the draft, there is a humility that endures, even nowin his role as senior adviser of basketball operations.
So, no, in a 2018 draft when the Heat also lacked a first-round pick, he didn’t push for a pick.
Instead, as could again be the caseonNov. 18, hewaited through all 60selections, his speed dial set forwhathe viewed as a low-risk, high-rewardpossibility.
And then came the midnight hours.
“Itwasn’t like I told these guys hewas a first-round pick,” Kammerer said. “I thought he couldmake our roster, but I had no idea he’d be our starter in two years.”
To a degree, that leads to somewhat of the shame of this year’s process, one created by pandemic scheduling.
If there again is such a prospect forKammerer and theHeat, it this timewould arrivewithout the advantage of an ensuing summer league, or even extensive time on theHeat practice court. Instead, it could be directly on to training camp, a transition thatwell might have been a bitmucheven forRobinson in 2018.
“We knowhewas good,” Kammerer said. “We didn’t know this good.”
But, more importantly, they made sure no one else knew.
In the lane
Cultureexplained: As part of his introduction asNewOrleans Pelicans coach, StanVan Gundywas asked to reflect on his time as aHeat assistant and coach. That has him clarifying Heat culture. “It has very little to do withwhat you say, and it has everything to do with what youdoonaneverydaybasis,” VanGundy said. “I’ve said to people in the past: I startedmy NBAcareerworking under Pat Riley in Miami and nowthey talk about ‘Heat Culture’ all the time. But when Iwas there— and Iwas there for over 10 years — I never remember Pat even using thatword ‘culture.’ I never remember him talking about culture. And yet every guy on our roster could’ve told you exactly
what the culturewas of the MiamiHeat. So you build your culture day by day, interaction by interaction, practice by practice, step by step.”
Bealbackpedal? The moment WashingtonWizards guard Bradley Beal signed his extension last season, the thoughtwas hewas offthe table to teams, such as theHeat, looking at 2021 offseasonmakeovers. Now, perhaps not. Appearing on JJ Redick’s podcast, Beal apparently could yet wind up being open to relocating. “Itwas more or less, do Iwant to have something built around me? And I had that opportunity to do it here. Or do I kind ofwant to test thewaters? And that’s kind of whatmade medo so,” Beal said of extending with theWizards. “But I signed my deal and kind of structured it to where I had some flexibility, because, at the end of the day, I stillwant to win. And the organization has to showme thatwe want to win. . . . But you stillwant to be able to protect yourself and kind of be selfish in that regard. Howcan I create some type of flexibility formyself ifwe aren’t winning, if I do choose to get out?” Beal is due $34.5 million in 2021-22, with a $37.3 million player option for 2022-23.
Pre-heatedJazz: With theUtah Jazz’s ownership transfer this pastweek by the Miller family, it served as a reminder of how NBAbasketball nearly arrived in South Florida before the 1988 inception of theHeat. In 1985, with the Jazz unable to generate interest in Salt LakeCity, previously reduced to the point of selling off1982 first-round pick DominiqueWilkins, the team was poised to relocate to Miami before Larry H. Miller stepped in
to buy a 50-percent stake in the team, at $8 million, and keep it inUtah. “I knewwe had to keep [the Jazz] inUtah somehow,” the late owner said at the time. “This was important tome.” The deal to keep the Jazz in Salt Lake City came two days before the Miami deadline. Ayear later, Miller put up $14million to buy the rest of the team, at a time there were plans for it otherwise to be moved to Minneapolis. TheHeat and Timberwolves thenwere added as expansion franchises in 1987.
TheDeerfear: In summing up his team’s season in an interview with TheAthletic, MilwaukeeBucksVice President Alex Lasry said it is important for his team not to overreact to its second-round loss to theHeat in the Disney bubble. “You don’t want tomake excuses for what happened,” he said.“We lost. The series against theHeat very easily could have been, we could have been up 3-1. We just didn’t execute thewaywe normally do and had all season. And you’ve got to give a lot of credit to the Heat. Theymade every team, I think, uncomfortable. And their ability to executewas really impressive. We all say thiswas an unprecedented situation.”
Number
20-1. Odds forHeat forward JimmyButler winning 2020
21NBAMostValuable Player, according to BetOnLine. The only otherHeat player listed with odds by the offshore book is centerBamAdebayo, at 80-1. DallasMavericks guardLuke Doncic is listed as the favorite, at
5-1, followed by Giannis Antetokounmpo and LeBron James, both at 6-1.