Q: I see you receiving a great amount of mail from people who feel the Heat are not doing enough to improve their roster. People are clamoring for a blockbuster trade or a free-agent signing.
My perspective on this is that the Heat are taking a mature, calculated look at their roster, their draft assets, as well as their cap status, and have realized that the resources for a trade or a free-agent signing that would bring them to a championship level are not available to them.
Recent history shows that successful teams have been built through the draft over a period of time. I suspect that this is what the Heat are transitioning to.
Their strategy appears to be to conserve their draft resources until they have enough ammunition to make trades or acquire better players through the draft.
People who are applauding Cleveland, Boston, Oklahoma City, Indiana and Detroit for their skillful building through the draft seem to forget that it took those teams many years of tanking to reach the level of contention they are at now. None of those teams depleted their cap space or wasted draft picks on older “superstar players” to build their teams.
If the building through the draft strategy is what everybody is looking for, then they cannot complain if the Heat have realized that this is a year to conserve resources and to evaluate talent. – Gary, Boca Raton.
A: Cogent thinking.
So, no, this was not one of the questions plucked from social media.
All are points well made. Patience can prove profitable, as long as it comes with an appreciation of, dare we say it, the process?
But because this also would be a turn from the Heat’s approach these past three decades, what also is needed is a study of whether their fanbase would tolerate such an approach.
Losing-to-win rarely has been a Heat thought process. It is why I think the organization should be doing a better job of selling the fanbase on the future. Instead, it seems management is more than content to allow for this never-ending cycle of speculation regarding Durant, Lillard, Beal and panacea, instead of patience.
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Q: Who are you looking at in summer league? – Nathan.
A: Probably the same as where the Heat are focusing their attention – on Kel’el Ware, Kasparas Jackucionis, Pelle Larsson, Keshad Johnson and Vlad Goldin, the five players under contract for next season. Considering Nikola Jovic and Jaime Jaquez Jr. also sit on the regular-season roster, it’s not as if the Heat have room for much else in the way of developmental talent this summer. In fact, it is quite possible that one of the players on a Heat two-way contract this season is someone who is playing summer league for another team.
Q: Can the Heat still trade Kasparas Jackucionis? – Allan.
A: Yes, but they now would have to wait 30 days from his July 1 signing. But there is no sense of such a possibility at the moment. Typically, it is easier to trade a first-round pick before he signs. But, yes, such moves have been made from time to time after the 30-day waiting period.