The Miami Heat have the 20th pick in the NBA Draft. With a myriad of situations surrounding it, here are three reasons they shouldn’t make a pick.
The Miami Heat are coming off of a tough NBA Finals series and they are certainly looking for help. In any normal year, this would be the time where we, Pat Riley included, would be looking to the draft to see how the Miami Heat could best use their pick to immediately improve their team, providing that they even had a pick.
Well, this season is a bit different. For a few different reasons, you just don’t get that same feeling about this draft.
With that and to take it a bit further, here are three reasons that the Miami Heat should consider punting on this year’s NBA Draft.
Buyer Beware (lack of true evaluation)
With the fact that we have all had to endure our current world situation, a pandemic of almost unseen proportion, this season had a lot of moving parts to it. The offseason has mirrored that nature.
With the fluctuation in the way that everything has unfolded, with the lack of access, and with the lack of the usual looks that are afforded to each team on players that they may be interested in, this seems like a year where most people are drafting blind.
Yes, for those teams at the top, they know what they are getting. After the fifth pick or so though, everything is pretty much a crapshoot.
With the Miami Heat way down at 20, that really requires proper homework being done and none of the teams are in an optimal position to do it. That’s the first reason.
The Miami Heat have the 20th pick in this year’s NBA draft. Here’s the thing though, they shouldn’t use it.
Equal Talent Later Or Undrafted
When we say “punt”, we tend to mean on their first-round pick, which is associated with our third reason and we will get there, but that doesn’t mean that they can’t jump back into the second round somehow or even be active on the undrafted player market.
With this draft in particular and with the lack of true evaluation opportunity, the ability to find equal or better talent late or after the draft is just as great as being able to get a guy at say… 20, where the Miami Heat would have picked.
With the Miami Heat’s scouting and development department, they should definitely be able to find someone worth giving a harder look, even with the limits that have been mentioned throughout. Mind you though, there’s a huge difference in giving someone a second round or undrafted look, as opposed to investing a first-round draft pick into them.
That resource can be better used elsewhere
Another key reason that they should punt on this year’s draft, the reason touched on a little bit ago, is that the resource that is the 20th pick can be better used by the Miami Heat for another reason. They can still use it to acquire a guy, just as apart of a trade deal.
With the fact that they, again, haven’t really seen these guys the way they typically have, the pick can be used for a more certain means of improvement. It seems only right.
That pick would bring the Miami Heat more immediate value in a package for another impact guy than it would in the form of a rookie. That’s just the truth.
The Miami Heat have a ton of decisions to make in the next few months before the next season begins. This one should be an easy one though.
Really, it should. Unless they have a chance to land one of the premier talents after a sudden unexpected fall, which they most certainly won’t, they shouldn’t even entertain taking a guy.