Miami Heat: Fran Fraschilla has words of caution about the Heat draft pick

The Miami Heat have the 13th pick in the most top-heavy NBA draft in years. ESPN’s Fran Fraschilla spoke to the Miami Herald about that pick’s value.

With the NBA draft lottery over and done with, the Miami Heat are locked into the 13th pick. Their lottery experience was over before it started, and they got to watch the rest of the lottery field battle it out for the top four picks.

Well, really, the top three picks.

This draft may be the most top-heavy in NBA history, and it’s definitely the most top-heavy in years. At the top of class is Zion Williamson, then Ja Morant, and then most likely R.J. Barrett, and then beyond that it’s a rough class to have made a big leap into, say, the fourth pick, like the Los Angeles Lakers did on Tuesday.

ESPN draft expert Fran Fraschilla spoke to Barry Jackson of the Miami Herald on Wednesday about the players the Heat might select with that 13th pick, listing familiar names like Kevin Porter Jr., P.J. Washington, Bol Bol, and basically everybody else expected to go anywhere from about 12 through 20.

The Miami Heat do remain in no-man’s land, however, in a draft with a wide swath of desolation in the first round. As Fraschilla told Jackson:

"“At 13, in this draft, you’re lucky to get a rotation player. The talent falls off in terms of All-Star potential after four.”"

While there are diamonds found in the rough of almost every draft, banking on such a thing is not a winning strategy. If the Heat have the opportunity, this is about as good a draft as they’ll find to trade their pick down, or package it in a deal for other assets or players.

Given the wide range of names Fraschilla could drop that might be there at 13, some of those will still be there at 20 or later, and if the Miami Heat can improve their war chest in some way as a result, so much the better.

Of course, they won’t be fooling anybody in doing so. It’s no secret that this is a bad draft outside of the top three, so a middling asset like the 13th overall pick will have much less value than it might in other years. The best use of the pick might be to trade as an incentive if the Heat have the opportunity to get off significant salary in order to open up a max slot to pursue a marquee free agent.

It won’t be sexy to see the Heat parcel out their pick in the hopes of pursuing Jimmy Butler or some other big-name player, but it might be the right thing to do in order to untangle the mess of their poorly-built roster.