Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Road warrior
Assistant Heat GM Adam Simon’s career built on tenacity.
MIAMI — The notion seemed to make perfect sense at the time, avoid a double flight connection from Lithuania to Poland by instead taking a bus after scouting a game.
In retrospect, Adam Simon, the Miami Heat’s assistant general manager, now admits it probably wasn’t the best idea.
“The best option was to get on a bus after a game, like at 11 o’clock at night and take an overnight ride through to Poland and wake up,” Simon said during a break from preparing for the June 22 NBA draft. “And I happened to miss the stop because the driver didn’t announce it. So I asked the driver if that was the airport where I was meeting this person in Poland. He said, ‘No.’ He didn’t understand me. So I kept going another 20 minutes or a half hour, and then it was last stop. And he was like, ‘You, off the bus. Now!’ And I’m like, ‘What? This doesn’t look like the airport.’ And he was, ‘Off bus!’
“So I got off the bus and basically took a taxi all the way back that cost me more than the eight-hour bus ride that I took.”
That story, and others that Simon often recounts, are part of his road map to one of the top spots in the Heat front office. He started as a video-room intern under current coach Erik Spoelstra, after graduating St. Thomas University.
When it comes to what Simon, 44, has become, Heat President Pat Riley made that
clear at his season-ending media session.
“I can’t think of any other person in scouting or personnel that has put in the time that Adam has put in,” Riley said.
Riley then joked about Simon’s Rolodex. That, however, is more the stuff of hyperbole than Simon’s tales from the road from his time as the Heat’s director of international scouting.
“There’s one around here somewhere,” Simon said with a laugh. “Thankfully, we don’t have those things and we have Outlook and can back up our phones. But that was pretty funny. There was one. I don’t think I threw it away.”
The resume, however, is real. He had pushed for the Heat to go for emerging Houston Rockets center Clint Capela when the Heat instead drafted Shabazz Napier in the first round of the 2014 draft. And he was among those instrumental in bringing Tyler Johnson’s to the Heat attention after the scrappy guard went undrafted in 2014 out of Fresno State.
“Adam was a huge fan of Capela, and he was right on,” Chet Kammerer, the Heat’s vice president of player personnel, said. “That would be a player that he was right on. That one sticks out.
“And he was a Tyler Johnson guy as far as a free agent. He felt like he was special because he was such a fierce competitor and also he was so explosive. He thought, ‘This guy is going to develop into something pretty good down the road.’ ”
The hunch on Capela, the Swiss big man who played in France before being drafted one pick after Napier in 2014, took Simon back to his international roots.
Which brings up another story Simon regales from his days on the road overseas.
“One of the most remote places I’ve ever had been to was Kazan, Russia,” he said. “I got on this plane, the scene on this plane was people were buying beers from the flight attendant before the plane even took off. People are smoking on the plane. It was a free-for-all.
“We land in the middle of the night, in this dark field. And there’s real no terminal. It almost looked like it was a barn. No marked taxi cab. Middle-of-thenight flight. I was like, ‘Anything can happen to me here right now.’ Luckily, my senses took over and I found a guy, and I showed him my hotel on my itinerary. He took me
“I can’t think of any other person in scouting or personnel that has put in the time that Adam has put in.” Pat Riley, on Adam Simon
there. But a little nervous there for a second, like, ‘What is going on here? Where am I?’ ”
Ultimately, there was a happy ending.
“It actually was a good trip,” he said. “I found a player there.”
Since those trips, Simon has added the title as general manager of the Heat’s NBA Development League affiliate, the Sioux Falls Skyforce, named NBDL Executive of the Year last year following the Skyforce’s 2016 championship. Then, earlier this month, he was named to a committee post with USA Basketball, charged with helping select the players to represent the United States in qualifying for basketball’s World Cup.
“He’s a very good detail guy. I mean very good,’ ” Kammerer said. “He’s relentless as far as a worker. He’s one of those guys that will go to great lengths to, I think, cover every stone, everything you have to do to make sure we get all the vital information.
“I don’t think he’s as driven by numbers as by who he thinks has the most upside. He would be one of those guys that would tend to favor players who he thinks has the bigger upside — maybe not as good now, but in three years this guy is going to be better than this guy. I mean there’s guys in the organization who’d say, ‘Look at the numbers, this guy is clearly better.’ And he is. Adam would take the side of, ‘But he’s two years older. He’s three years older. This guy is going to be better.’ ”
Where there initially was awe, there now is respect from those Simon had held in such esteem.
“I never played in the NBA. I’m never going to be Pat Riley,” he said. “I never coached. I don’t have that luxury. But I know what I can do, and I know my ability to be on the road, to have relationships with people, to identify talent. I feel really strong about it and I think I continue to work hard and I have that drive because I know that that’s what got me here.
“I’ve been in cars traveling around Europe with Jerry West. I’ve sat and scouted games next to Larry Bird. Michael Jordan, I’ve sat with him. And, of course, the first time I met Pat in 1995, I was in awe. My colleagues, my peers, the people that I work with, it blows my mind that I’m in this position. I don’t take it for granted, but I feel comfortable in my ability to work with those gentlemen because of the time and the work I put in.” And what he has survived. Which takes him back on the road for the third tale of travel terror.
“Landing once in a small city in Ukraine, there’s like dogs on the runway,” he said. “They pick you up in this tractor-looking device. I’m like, ‘Holy cow, now this is a remote place.’ ”