Heat survive Part 1 of Goran Dragic payment plan
PHILADELPHIA — When it comes to draftpick preservation and dissemination, the Miami Heat have done a solid job of limiting the pain in recent years, doing so again this season with this playoff berth against the Philadelphia 76ers.
As a result, if there is to be any residual sting from the February 2015 acquisition of Goran Dragic from the Phoenix Suns, it isn’t likely to be particularly unsettling this June.
To review the recent safe passage through possible lottery lament for Pat Riley and the Heat front office:
In 2015, when the Heat stood to lose their firstround pick to the 76ers if wasn’t in the top 10, they attempted to put together a season-ending loss for the ages, playing Michael Beasley, Henry Walker, James Ennis and Tyler Johnson all 48 minutes, in a game they still won but benefited by outside results to protect their bottom-10 standing.
They emerged with Justise Winslow from that draft.
That meant that their 2016 first-round pick instead went to the 76ers, with the Heat rolling to a 48-34 record and handing over nothing more than the No. 24 selection, which turned out to be French swingman Timothe Luwawu-Cabarrat, who is sidelined from this Heat-76ers series with a knee injury amid a nondescript start to his NBA career.
Which brings us back to this year’s draft and the danger the Heat flirted with during much of this season, namely the first of the two first-round picks it due to the Suns from the Dragic trade.
The protections on the 2018 selection were through the first seven picks, with it otherwise due to Phoenix. Had the Heat come up short of the postseason, that could have had the Suns with a selection as high as No. 8.
Instead, the selection comes in at No. 16, the type of mid-first that teams often dangle amid draft-day dealing, the type of selection that generally produces little more than a career journeyman.
This year, based on the early draft projections, that should leave the Suns with the opportunity to utilize the Heat selection among the likes of University of Miami guard Lonnie Walker, Kentucky forward Kevin Knox, UCLA guard Aaron Holiday or perhaps Anfernee Simmons or Mitchell Robinson, amid their unconventional approaches to the draft.
For now, with Winslow, Bam Adebayo, Josh Richardson, Tyler Johnson and perhaps even what can be made of Derrick Jones Jr. and Derrick Walton Jr., there is enough youth in the Heat pipeline to withstand a first round without a selection.
What will be more intriguing is what becomes of the 2021 first-round selection that has to be forwarded to the Suns from the Dragic trade. That pick comes without protection and will come when Dragic will be 35 and a season removed from the final year on his current contract.
While it is difficult to predict where any team stands three years out, that pick will come due weeks after the contracts of James Johnson, Kelly Olynyk and Dion Waiters expire.
On one hand, those deals may well have been written to prevent a prime lottery pick from being forwarded to Phoenix in ’21, or they could be what locks the Heat into a cycle of mediocrity that could leave them forwarding a 2021 lottery pick.
What’s worth recollecting, both now and at the June 21 draft, is that the deal for Dragic was made when Chris Bosh had yet to learn of his blood clots and with the Heat still taking a long view with Dwyane Wade.
Even with Bosh’s illness and Wade’s departure before this season’s return, the Heat were able to navigate through their 2015 lottery concerns, push within one game of the 2016 Eastern Conference finals, utilize a 2017 lottery pick on Adebayo and now make this playoff return that minimizes the sting of the first-rounder being forwarded to the Suns.
The next challenge will be making sure there is no bitter aftertaste to the Dragic trade in 2021, when the stakes could be high, with no safety net for that unprotected pick.
iwinderman@sunsentinel .com. Twitter @iraheatbeat, facebook.com/ ira.winderman