Miami Heat projected to draft potential lottery pick compared to Kyle Lowry, Bruce Brown

As the NCAA tournament marches on the NBA playoff race heats up, teams are at once preparing to potentially play into June while scouting for the draft.

Top college prospects can make a name for themselves this time of year and climb NBA draft boards. The Miami Heat are in the thick of playoff push, but you know their scouting department is hard at work trying to find the next Jaime Jaquez Jr. or Nikola Jovic.

Basketball analysts are also juggling and this time of the year is ripe for NBA mock drafts and offseason speculation. In his most recent mock draft, The Ringer’s Kevin O’Connor has Miami selecting a player whose school didn’t make the NCAA tournament.

No matter how the postseason plays out, the Heat will end up selecting near the middle of the first round (just as they did when drafting Jaquez) because of their regular-season record. 

That puts them in a position to take another potentially high-impact player. O’Connor has the Heat selecting Devin Carter, a junior guard out of Providence. Carter is no. 13 on O’Connor’s big board and the 16th-ranked prospect according to ESPN.

“Carter feels like a classic Heat Culture player with his hounding on-ball defense and his selfless offense. He could become everything the Heat hoped Kyle Lowry could be before they moved on,” O’Connor wrote.

The Ringer compared Devin Carter to Bruce Brown, who would be an ideal fit for a team in need of high-end defensive guard play.

At 6-foot-3 with a 6-foot-7 wingspan, Carter is considered one of the better point-of-attack defenders in his class. He rebounds, cuts and screens. He is sinking 40% of his 3s this season.

He’s raw as a ball-handler and his shooting is still a question (he shots below 30% on 3s in his first two seasons, so how real is this 40% burst?). 

But the Heat drafting a college junior who is compared to former University of Miami standout Bruce Brown? That sounds like something they would do.