Miami Heat president Pat Riley speaks with members of the media during his season-ending news conference at the AmericanAirlines Arena in downtown Miami on Saturday, April 13, 2019. (Matias J. Ocner/Miami Herald/TNS via Getty Images)
The Miami Heat have been known to trade their picks for stars, but is that such a bad thing? Let’s have a look at what those picks could have been.
If you look at the draft history of the Miami Heat, you will notice that there are many first-round picks missing. Since the arrival of the great Pat Riley, the Heat have traded 10 of their first-round picks.
Since 1995, the Miami Heat have had 13 first-round picks. Can you imagine that?
Out of 24 years, in almost half of those years, the team didn’t have their first-round picks. You can even add one more to that when you remember that one of the picks was seemingly wasted on Michael Beasley.
At the time of these trades, we as fans may have thought that we were completely sacrificing our future for just one player, but we now understand that multiple future draft-picks don’t hold the same value as an established star. However, at the same time, no one knew how those draft-picks would pan out in the future.
Take the Cleveland Cavaliers and their trade with the Los Angeles Clippers. Who would have thought at that time, that the Cavaliers traded for a pick that would turn into Kyrie Irving. Also, take the Brooklyn Nets and Boston Celtics trade(yes the one with Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett), it was one of the worst trades in league history.
Now, a couple of years into the future since those drafts, we have an idea if the players that the Miami Heat missed out on became stars or busts. Here are the top five players based on the picks that the Miami Heat have traded in the past, starting with the most recent draft in 2018.