Heat could have had zero, one or two first-round picks this year: ‘You play the hand you’re dealt’
Early this season, the Miami Heat’s front office and scouting department didn’t know if they would have any picks in this year’s NBA Draft. Then after acquiring a top-10 protected 2025 first-round pick from the Golden State Warriors in the Jimmy Butler trade in February, the Heat prepared for the possibility of having two selections in the first round of the draft.
The Heat’s draft pick situation has been in flux for months, but clarity finally came this week. The Heat will enter the offseason with the 20th overall pick in the first round of the June 25-26 NBA Draft.
“If you would have said back in the fall or winter, we’re probably thinking like we might not have any picks,” said Adam Simon, who is the Heat’s vice president of basketball operations and assistant general manager. “So we start thinking about who could go undrafted. ... And then as we got closer to the trade deadline, we said: ‘Hey, now we could have a pick, the Warriors’ pick.’ Then when we lost 10 in a row, you start saying: ‘Hey, we might have two picks.’ So we went from having potentially no picks and thinking the preparation in the spring is going to be more targeted toward the back of the draft to saying we’re going to be in whole middle of the draft and we’re going to be super involved in this.
“So now after winning those two play-in games, we are now able to target the middle, where we are. But it certainly changed for us pre-trade deadline and post-trade deadline.”
That’s because the Heat will receive the Warriors’ first-round pick this year as part of the Butler trade made earlier this season. The Heat was set to receive the Warriors’ first-round pick this year as long as it fell between No. 11 and 30 overall.
While the Heat knew it would get the Warriors’ first-round pick this year once Golden State clinched a playoff spot through the play-in tournament last week, Miami didn’t know exactly where the selection would end up because of a tie in the standings. But a random drawing conducted Monday to break that tie among the Warriors, Memphis Grizzlies and Milwaukee Bucks, which all finished the regular season at 48-34, produced these results: No. 18 Grizzlies (to Washington Wizards), No. 19. Bucks (to Brooklyn Nets) and No. 20 Warriors (to Heat).
“Nothing changed this week because the scouting element is done besides the combine,” Simon said when asked how the clarity that the Heat received in recent days affected the team’s draft evaluation process. “We were in just Portsmouth and that was for players who are mostly in the second round or the undrafted group. And then the combine coming up and the workouts, that’s the only live scouting domestically. So we had already done that work.
“We did target — me specifically with [Heat director of college and pro scouting Keith Askins] and [Heat vice president of player personnel Eric Amsler] and our scouts — we were making sure that we were diving into the players that we thought would be in the middle of the first round. So we certainly focused our energy there over February and March. So now, there are live games in Europe. So that’s on the agenda, as well. And then we just dive into the reports and the intel and video and statistical and all the other stuff that we can do now that the games are done. That’s what we’ll be spending our time on in May and June.”
The NBA’s Draft Combine will be held from May 11-18 in Chicago, and the Heat will then begin hosting predraft workouts a few weeks later.
“This time is the recalibration,” Simon said ahead of Game 2 of the Heat’s first-round playoff series against the Cleveland Cavaliers on Wednesday night at Rocket Arena. “You find out where you’re picking. If you’re in the lottery, you go from there. But that’s not the case for us right now. And then we’re waiting for the early entry list to come out and that basically fires off the gun to start the race to the draft.”
If history is any indication, the Heat will find a useful player at No. 20 in this year’s draft.
The Heat’s last six first-round picks have been Kel’el Ware last year, Jaime Jaquez Jr. in 2023, Nikola Jovic in 2022, Precious Achiuwa in 2020, Tyler Herro in 2019 and Bam Adebayo in 2017. Except for Achiuwa, all of those players are still on Miami’s roster.
“I think every move we make, whether it’s a trade or the draft or plucking players in the summer or from the G League, you’re hoping that they can contribute,” Simon said. “They’re not all going to contribute at the same time. We have depth. We have a lot of talent on the roster. It’s nice to see Kel’el starting and playing. And we have other guys we’ve drafted the last couple of years who have been good at times. And based on just the rotations that [Heat coach Erik Spoelstra] is using, some haven’t been playing as much. But, yeah, certainly as a group, we’re happy with the guys we’ve brought in. They’ve contributed, they’re getting better.”
The Heat had a chance to have two first-round picks this year, but lost its own first-round selection when it defeated the Atlanta Hawks on Friday to become the first 10th-place team in either conference to make the playoffs through the play-in tournament.
The Heat owed a 2025 lottery-protected first-round selection to the Oklahoma City Thunder — a pick first sent out by Miami in the 2019 trade to acquire Butler. The Heat’s pick that will be conveyed to the Thunder for the June draft will be at No. 15 overall.
With the Heat conveying the pick to the Thunder this year, it avoids owing a completely unprotected 2026 first-round pick to Oklahoma City. The fact that this year’s selection will go to the Thunder also preserves the lottery protections on the 2027 first-round pick it owes to the Charlotte Hornets as part of last season’s Terry Rozier trade, which would become a totally unprotected 2028 first-round selection if the pick is not conveyed to the Hornets in 2027.
From thinking it might have no first-round picks this year to possibly having two first-round selections if it missed the playoffs to now having one first-round pick after making the playoffs, the Heat is ready to move forward.
“You play the hand you’re dealt,” Simon said. “So we were going to be prepared. And if we had two picks, then you go into it. But you’re going to prepare for anything. You can prepare to use them to move up, you can maybe trade one out. If you liked enough players, we would take both. But then you have to look at your roster and see if there was room for two players.
“But we knew we had to pay our debt. That pick was going out, whether it was this year or next year, to OKC. I think we all feel a sense of relief that we completed our trade, which was the pick that went out for Jimmy and we can move on.”
