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The Miami Heat rarely spends time worrying about draft prospects over the summer. Maybe the facilities lack AC? Maybe the Miami beaches are more alluring than hours of scouting tape? Or maybe Pat Riley’s tan requires a critical mass of time spent in the sun.
In any event, the Heat are rarely in a position to draft high-end, plug-and-play talent. That honor usually goes to Miami’s northern cousin, the Orlando Magic.
But that hasn’t stopped Academy Award winner Michael Douglas from doing his best to recruit generational talent Victor Wembanyama to the Miami Heat. Last week, Douglas got to see next summer’s presumed top draft pick in action, telling a sideline reporter that he thinks the Miami Heat, the team he pulls for, should target the generational talent.
“I don’t think they have a chance,” Douglas explained. “I told Victor, ‘You should go to Florida.’”
The Heat Rarely Pick in the Lottery
Sitting at 13-15, many things would have to go wrong (and then probably very right) for the Heat to land Wembanyama’s services. The team is currently 10th in the East, with five teams with a worse record in the Eastern Conference, and a full five in the Western Conference.
If the season ended today, the Heat might land a pick in the lottery but would face between three percent and 0.5 percent odds to land the top pick. But if the Heat managed to win both games of the play-in, the team would be bounced completely from lottery contention altogether. And the odds Wembanyama falls to a potential Heat pick outside No. 1 in the lottery is minuscule. The odds he falls out of the lottery? Subterranean. Santa Clausian. Non. Existent.
But that’s a position the Heat would probably prefer. Since 2000, the Heat have only picked six times in the lottery and only have of those have been in the top ten. And since 2016, the Heat have only picked four times in the first round altogether. By comparison, the Orlando Magic have made nine trips to the lottery in the last ten drafts.
That’s not to say the Heat fail to identify talent. Bam Adebayo, Tyler Herro, and Nikola Jovic — all under 25 — look like promising future pieces in South Beach.
A New Big Three Brewing for the Heat?
The Heat are somewhat caught in-between eras right now, evidenced in the middling record. Miami boasts no shortage of aging stars in Kyle Lowry and Jimmy Butler. But what about the trio of Jovic, Adebayo, and Herro? According to Ira Winderman of the South Florida Sun-Sentinal, a new big three could be brewing in South Beach.
“In Nikola Jovic, you can see a bridge to the future. That is why it is essential to determine how he might fit going forward with Bam Adebayo and Tyler Herro. That might be your young core moving forward. Not quite ready to call it a Big Three, but there is a unique combined skill set with those three, particularly if Jovic can take some of the ballhandling onus off Herro in the years when Kyle Lowry has moved on.”
Jovic will take some time, especially now that he’s been sent down to the G-League. But he’s flashed real potential this season, something he should hope to build on moving forward.
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