As part of Giannis trade, Heat drafts Tennessee big Nate Ament for Bucks at No. 13
The Miami Heat made a pick in the first round of the NBA Draft on Tuesday, but it won’t keep the player it selected.
As part of the blockbuster trade that sent two-time NBA MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo to Miami, the Heat selected Tennessee forward Nate Ament on behalf of the Milwaukee Bucks with the 13th overall pick on Tuesday night.
The Heat dealt Tyler Herro, center Kel’el Ware, forward Jaime Jaquez Jr., guard Kasparas Jakucionis, three first-round picks (No. 13 overall this year that turned into Ament, and unprotected picks in 2031 and 2033), one first-round pick swap in 2030 and a 2033 second-rounder to the Bucks to acquire Antetokounmpo and veteran forward Bobby Portis.
The Heat needed to make the pick for the Bucks at No. 13 on Tuesday because Miami wasn’t technically eligible to trade its 2026 first-round pick, with NBA rules preventing teams from being without a first-round selection in two consecutive years (the Heat sent a top-14 protected first-round 2027 pick to the Charlotte Hornets in the Terry Rozier trade). The Heat picked Ament on behalf of the Bucks at No. 13 on Tuesday as a workaround.
In addition, the trade between the Heat and Bucks can’t be finalized and made official until the NBA’s free agency moratorium is lifted on July 6 at noon. The Heat and Bucks aren’t able to publicly comment on the trade until it’s official.
That had Ament walking on stage at Barclays Center in Brooklyn in a Heat hat despite being bound for the Bucks, with Miami selecting him for Milwaukee and the move to the Bucks still pending until July 6.
The 19-year-old Ament (6-foot-10 and 211 pounds) averaged 16.7 points, 6.3 rebounds and 2.3 assists per game as a freshman at Tennessee last season.
According to the NBA’s scouting report on Ament, his “blend of height, ball-handling, playmaking and foul-drawing ability makes him an enticing prospect. He fits the mold of a modern multi-positional creator who can run pick-and-roll, operate off movement and punish mismatches. Ament’s game at his size can draw comparisons to NBA players like Brandon Ingram and Andrew Wiggins. The shooting will determine where his ceiling lands, but everything else in the toolkit is already translatable.”
With Ament eventually heading to the Bucks, the Heat missed out on making and keeping a lottery pick for the first time since taking Herro with the 13th overall pick in 2019.
The Bucks also selected guard Brayden Burries out of Arizona with their own pick at No. 10 in the first round just a few picks before Miami selected for Milwaukee.
Over the last decade, the No. 13 pick in the draft has proven there is potential to find productive players at that spot. The last 10 players who have been taken at No. 13 in the NBA Draft are Derik Queen in 2025, Devin Carter in 2024, Gradey Dick in 2023, Jalen Duren in 2022, Chris Duarte in 2021, Kira Lewis Jr. in 2020, Herro in 2019, Jerome Robinson in 2018, Donovan Mitchell in 2017 and Georgios Papagiannis in 2017.
Devin Booker was taken with the No. 13 pick in 2015 and Basketball Hall of Famer Kobe Bryant was selected with the No. 13 pick in the 1996 draft.
Even after sending a haul of draft capital to the Bucks for Antetokounmpo, the Heat holds three of its next four first-round picks after this year. The Heat is on track to have a first-round pick in either 2027 or 2028, and also has its first-round selections in 2029 and 2030.
The Heat’s 2027 first-round pick will go to the Hornets if it’s between picks No. 15 and No. 30. If the Heat’s pick in next year’s draft falls between No. 1 and No. 14, Miami would keep that pick and send Charlotte an unprotected first-round pick in 2028.
The top five selections in this year’s NBA Draft were: No. 1 AJ Dybantsa to the Washington Wizards, No. 2 Darryn Peterson to the Utah Jazz, No. 3 Cameron Boozer (Miami-Columbus High product) to the Memphis Grizzlies, No. 4 Caleb Wilson to the Chicago Bulls and No. 5 Keaton Wagler to the Los Angeles Clippers.
SECOND ROUND UP NEXT
While the Heat hasn’t added a player in the first round of this year’s draft, the Heat is set to acquire a player through the draft with the 41st overall pick in the second round on Wednesday (8 p.m., ESPN).
The Heat received this second-round selection from the Hornets to resolve a dispute over Rozier being under NBA and federal investigation over alleged gambling when Charlotte traded him to Miami in January 2024.
It marks the first time that the Heat has had a second-round pick since 2024, when it came away with guard Pelle Larsson with the 44th overall selection. Among the other recent players who the Heat selected or traded for in the second round are KZ Okpala in 2019 and Josh Richardson in 2015.
With the Heat holding the 11th pick in the second round, ESPN rates these 15 prospects as the best available after the first round of the draft: Duke guard Isaiah Evans, North Carolina center Henri Veesaar, Arkansas guard Meleek Thomas, Cincinnati forward Baba Miller, Louisville guard Ryan Conwell, German guard Jack Kayil, BYU guard Richie Saunders, Houston guard Emanuel Sharp, Purdue guard Braden Smith, St. John’s forward Dillon Mitchell, Arkansas forward Trevon Brazile, Tennessee forward Felix Okpara, Arizona guard Jaden Bradley, Tennessee guard Ja’Kobi Gillespie and South Florida forward Izaiyah Nelson.
While first-round picks are slotted into salaries through the NBA’s rookie scale, there isn’t as much structure with second-round selections. NBA teams can use a two-way contract or standard contract to sign a second-round pick.
The Heat’s doesn’t have cap space, but it can use a minimum contract to sign the No. 41 pick to a standard deal and that would come with a $1.4 million cap hit. Minimum deals can be no longer than two seasons in length.
The Heat could also use the relatively new second-round pick exception to sign the No. 41 selection to a standard contract that includes a first-year salary worth up to the minimum salary for a player with one year of NBA experience of $2.2 million. Every team that made a second-round selection has a second-round pick exception, which can be used to sign a second-round pick to a three- or four-year contract without needing to use a mid-level exception to do it.
The Heat also has the ability to purchase an additional second-round pick or sell its second-round selection, which has become commonplace over the years. A team that buys a second-round pick becomes hard-capped at the second apron for the entirety of that upcoming season, but that’s not an issue for Miami since it’s already hard-capped at the first apron because it took back more salary than it sent out in the trade for Antetokounmpo.
The Heat, which has yet to include cash or receive cash as part of a trade during the 2025-26 NBA calendar, has the full $7.964 million to send out and the full $7.964 million to receive in a potential transaction involving a second-round selection.
This story was originally published June 23, 2026 at 9:33 PM.
