One night after suffering one of the worst losses of the season to the Hawks, Heat head coach Erik Spoelstra and Heat owner Mickey Arison did something out of the ordinary: attending a college basketball game, and not just any contest; they attended one that featured the number two ranked Duke Blue Devils.
Duke just happened to be in town facing the Miami Hurricanes, and what’s notable about the Blue Devils is that they have three lottery prospects. Khaman Maluch, Kon Knueppel, and Cooper Flagg are all projected to be in the top 10 of the 2025 NBA draft with Flagg being projected as the number one pick.
Miami Heat coach Erik Spoelstra got a front row seat to watch Cooper Flagg and Duke's other top prospects.
Erik Spoelstra spotted at the Duke vs Miami game last night
— Heat Culture (@HeatCulture13) February 26, 2025
Scouting already 🤔 pic.twitter.com/kmV18InVye
Usually, NBA head coaches do not attend college basketball games, so when the Heat reached a season-low of four games under .500, fans began to wonder if it was really a coincidence that Spoelstra attended a game with three lottery prospects.
The Heat do not normally tank, in fact, Heat president Pat Riley has publicly stated that he does not support tanking. However, in a year where Miami has gone through so much with the Jimmy Butler drama and is now fully committing to building around the young core of Tyler Herro and Bam Adebayo, would it be a bad thing to tank?
If the Heat and the Warriors do not make the playoffs, the Heat will have two lottery picks as long as the Warriors pick doesn’t fall in the top 10. This would give Miami a decent chance to move up through the lottery or trade up to get one of the three Duke prospects. Flagg’s two-way potential, Knueppel’s sharpshooting, and Malauch’s vertically could all fit “Heat culture.”
Of course, Flagg, who will be the undisputed number one pick, will be a long shot, but since the lottery odds changed in 2020, anything can happen. The Hawks finished 10th in the east last season and had just a 3% chance to get the number one pick in last year’s lottery, and luck went their way; if you're Miami, why not try to get a generational prospect in Flagg?
The reality is that the Heat are just not good enough to win a playoff series. Everyone around the league knows this, and attending the Duke-Miami game is a sign that Spoelstra knows it as well.