Miami Heat: An updated look at the lottery situation for the Heat

The Miami Heat were involved in the NBA’s annual coin flip day, the mechanism the league uses to break lottery ties. We’ll take a look at how the Heat were impacted.

While the Miami Heat had playoff aspirations this season, those goals fell just short with only a couple games left. Now that those playoff hopes are a thing of the past, we look forward to the draft and the lottery, and Friday’s so-called “coin flip day” set the stage for the final lottery seedings.

Now, that title is a colloquialism, because the NBA doesn’t actually flip coins to determine the tiebreakers. Instead the league draws randomly among the teams tied to determine a winner.

The Heat were in a three-way tie with the Charlotte Hornets and the Sacramento Kings, all of whom finished with 39-43 records. The Hornets won the tiebreaker, with the Heat coming second and the Kings third.

This means that the Miami Heat will find themselves in the 13th lottery slot. Because of the NBA’s lottery-reformed odds, it’s a slightly more favorable spot than in past years. A team at 13 has a one percent chance to jump up to the number one pick, while in past years a team at 13 only had a 0.6 percent chance to jump to the first overall pick.

The Heat also have a 4.7 percent chance to jump to a top-four pick. They could pick second 1.1 percent of the time, third 1.2 percent and fourth 1.4 percent of the time. The worst case scenario: the Heat could slip to 14th 4.6 of the time, meaning that 90.6 percent of the time they will pick exactly where they’re at, 13th in the draft.

It’s certainly a no-man’s land, but gems can be found in the middle of the draft. We’ll be ramping up our own draft coverage and mocks in the coming days and weeks, so keep an eye on All U Can Heat for your Miami Heat draft coverage needs.