Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Heat can’t afford to miss
NBA DRAFT: JUNE 22
MIAMI — The Miami Heat aren’t down to their last strike. It only feels that way.
“To be honest,” said Chet Kammerer, the Heat’s vice president of player personnel, “I mean we don’t have quite as many swings.”
Such is the life of a Heat draft evaluator. By the time Heat President Pat Riley is done with the trade market, you sometimes find yourself left with crumbs.
One of those morsels is this year’s first-round pick, a selection that, by NBA rule, the Heat will have to exercise, unable to deal successive first-round picks.
The Heat are under that restriction because their 2018 first-round pick will go to the Phoenix Suns to begin the payment schedule for the 2015 acquisition of guard Goran Dragic (and brother Zoran Dragic), provided that pick is not among the first seven. Otherwise, the Heat will owe their unprotected 2019 first-round pick. The second and final payment due to the Suns is the Heat’s unprotected 2021 first-round pick.
Having also gone without last season’s first-round pick, with that pick the final payment of the 2010 sign-and-trade acquisition of LeBron James, it means the firstround pick the Heat must exercise on June 22 likely will wind up as their lone firstround selection over a three-year span.
“I feel like we really, really have to make
sure we’ve done our homework,” said Kammerer, with this week’s Chicago draft combine a major part of that research. “It doesn’t really affect my thinking that much. It might to other people in our organization. I still believe we’ve got to take who we think is going to develop into the best player.
“I mean, we probably don’t draft a guy who’s really a project and feel like he’s two or three years away. We are not going to gamble quite as much as some other organization because they have two picks in the first round every year. So they look at it a little bit different.”
That could, for example, potentially mean lessened interest in Duke forward Harry Giles, after a pair of ACL injuries, or Indiana forward OG Anunoby, who underwent season-ending knee surgery in January. It also could preclude the type of reach the Milwaukee Bucks made last year at No. 10 with raw prospect Thon Maker.
As it is, the Heat can get around the must-select rule by drafting a player and then forwarding him to another team, perhaps for additional draft picks, perhaps for a veteran player.
But those permutations come later. For now, the Heat’s scouting staff have to consider the likely No. 14 selection slot as their only bite at the draft apple over a three-year period.
“I look at it that we have to take advantage, we’ve got to make sure we get someone that can play,” Kammerer said. “It probably just feels like it’s a little more urgent than someone who has a lot of swings.”
Adam Simon, the Heat’s assistant general manager, said what you can’t do is make a selection concerned about factors beyond your control.
“To say we hope we want to get this one right, we would like to get everyone right,” he said. “I think you go into it making a selection trying to find the best player. I think the debate becomes there’s players that are ready to perform next year and there’s players that might be a couple of years away. And I think there’s no right answer. You’re trying to find the player who is going to be the best, have the best future, the best career.”
But wait, there’s more. (Actually, less.)
The Heat also enter this draft without a secondround pick, which also is the case with the team’s 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2021 second-round selections (there is no restriction on dealing successive future second-round picks).
The Heat, however, do have the ability to buy their way into a pick in either round, with second-round picks routinely up for auction. By rule, teams can spend up to $3.5 million on trades per cap calendar (from July 1 to June 30). The Heat last July spent $400,000 of that sum in the acquisition of Luke Babbitt from the New Orleans Pelicans, leaving them $3.1 million to spend at this year’s draft or on other transactions prior to June 30.
“We will look at it as if we could obtain a secondround pick,” Kammerer said. “So I think it’s very crucial for us to have our lists on draft night, if we have our one to 60 as accurately as we really believe as an organization. Because what would cause us to probably become more aggressive that night is if we had someone picked in the late 20s and he’s still there at 40 or something. That would be a major motivation for us to try to move in that direction.
“Believe me, we don’t go, ‘We don’t have a secondround pick; we’re not interested.’ Now, it probably is true that we won’t bring in a lot of guys for individual work, but I think that part isn’t as crucial for you to have a good read on them.”
The work will continue this week in Chicago as it did last year, when the Heat went without a pick in either round, and as could next year.
“I think,” Simon said, “you just try to find a good piece, whether you have a pick or you don’t. And if you don’t, then you’re using other methods to get players.”