How Justise was served to Heat
Patience proved a virtue for Miami on draft night
MIAMI — The perception of Pat Riley is locked in, fixated, focused.
Amid the mayhem, Riley, during his coaching days, would sit pregame on the bench diagraming one last set of plays, dark-blue pen on light-blue card stock, oblivious to balls ricocheting about him. Even now, in his executive role, the stare is laser-like from his courtside seat, seeming unaware of the chaos that is today’s NBA game experience.
And yet, after a night in the Heat’s makeshift draft headquarters on the team’s practice court, Riley offered a lesson in how blind pursuit can also blind to the possibilities.
To appreciate getting to this point, the point where the Heat will formally introduce Duke forward Justise Winslow at a Monday media session at American-Airlines Arena, is to appreciate the early years with Riley as a Heat executive, when players such as Charles Smith and Tim James were the firstround selections.
Then, as now, the preparation was exhaustive. The Heat targeted. The Heat selected. The fact those picks came late in the first round made it even easier to fixate.
Then came 2002, when the pick, as was the case Thursday, also was at No. 10.
The top of the draft largely was chalk. Yao Ming at No. 1. Jay Williams, before his horrific motorcycle crash, at No. 2. Mike Dunleavy Jr. at No. 3. Drew Gooden at No. 4.
Massive international prospect. Duke. Duke. Kansas.
But then some of the smartest men in the room began to act in just such belief. Nikoloz Tskitishvili at No. 5 to Denver. Dajuan Wagner to a gloating John Lucas and Cleveland at No. 6. Nene, Chris Wilcox and Amar’e Stoudemire as the next three picks.
And there he was, available at No. 10 to the Heat, the Big East Player of the Year, Caron Butler.
Flash forward now to Thursday. And flash forward to Riley as he leaned into the microphone.
“It reminds me a lot of what happened with Caron Butler,” he said of this path to Winslow. “I mean obviously it was somewhat of a surprise.”
Ultimately, that is what this exercise is about. Sometimes focused and fixated can prove blinding.
“There were a couple of players that were picked the first six or seven players, there was a surprise with one of them,” Riley said. “And sometimes when you’re doing this, when you’re in the lottery, you get locked into a guy, and you know really who you’re going to pick and there’s a consensus that you’re going to pick somebody and somebody slips. You might not want to get off the guy that you had.”
Perhaps that is why Arizona forward Stanley Johnson, viewed with less of a pedigree, went ahead of Winslow to the Detroit Pistons at No. 8. Perhaps it’s why Wisconsin forward Frank Kaminsky went directly ahead of the Heat to the Charlotte Hornets at No. 9.
“We didn’t think he would be there at ten,” Riley said of Winslow. “We were locked into a couple of guys. And it’s really interesting, after one of the players was picked at a certain number, our phones started ringing off the hook.”
By then, especially after the Pistons made their selection, a lot of phones were ringing off the hook. According to ESPN, the Boston Celtics’ desperation to trade into the Top 10, ostensibly to trade up for Winslow, reached the point of offering six total draft picks to the Hornets, as many as four of them firstround picks.
In the aftermath, Celtics president Danny Ainge acknowledged, “There was a time when I thought, ‘Whoa, this is getting a little out of control.’ We’re putting a lot of eggs in one young player’s basket.”
Meanwhile, back at Heat headquarters . . .
“It was really unbelievable how quickly the phone rang,” Riley said of suitors lining up for the Heat’s No. 10 pick. “I think Andy [Elisburg, the Heat’s general manager] at one time said that, ‘This was the most calls that I ever got in a draft like that,’ with people trying to get to 10, trying to move up.”
That, however, was when Riley, himself, grew fixated, focused.
“If you’re talking about the three-spot, he was our highest-rated player on the board,” Riley said, which, if the case, would have put Winslow ahead of Johnson in the Heat’s ratings at small forward.
The image of Pat Riley is of the smartest man in the room.
The reality is often of the most stubborn.
But Thursday, he relented. He let the draft come to him.
“It’s about patience,” Riley said.
Who would have thought?