The Miami Heat are on track to become a play-in team for the third straight season, which is a disappointing development, to say the least.
But not everything is dire, even though the Heat are still far from contention. In today’s NBA, having stars is obviously the most important ingredient to winning an NBA championship, but so are having very good players on cost-controlled contracts.
The only way to obtain the latter is to knock it out of the park in the NBA Draft. While the Heat aren’t bad enough to “tank” in what is viewed as an otherwise top-heavy East, they will likely have another bite at the apple in the NBA Draft–where they’ve found success–after not being projected to have a pick heading into the season.
Heat will likely have at least one first-round pick in 2025 NBA Draft:
When they traded Jimmy Butler to the Golden State Warriors ahead of the Feb. 6 deadline, the Miami Heat acquired a top-10 protected pick in the Andrew Wiggins-headlined package.
Golden State has been one of the best teams in the West since Butler’s insertion into the lineup. They are 9-1 in games that he has played, moving to the No. 6 seed in the East at 34-28. While they are still a half-game ahead of the No. 7-seeded Minnesota Timberwolves and two games ahead of the beleaguered Dallas Mavericks, who are the 10th seed, they are currently on the fast-track to finish outside of the play-in for the first time since they won the title in 2021-22.
Even if Golden State somehow flopped into the lottery, the only way it would keep their pick is if it miraculously landed a top-4 pick. The Warriors would have a 2.4 percent chance at having a top-4 pick if they had they had the best record among lottery teams, a 4.8 percent chance with the second-best and a 7.2 percent chance with the third-best. At this point, it’s very hard to see them finishing worse than the sinking Phoenix Suns at 29-33, who are currently slotted for the No. 12 pick.
Additionally, there’s still the outside chance that the middling Heat will finish with their own pick. It’s possible, but not likely.
Miami is currently the No. 7 seed in the East and two games above Atlanta for the No. 9 seed, thus suggesting it would have to lose both play-in games to the Orlando Magic and either one of Atlanta or Chicago.
Therefore, the likelihood of landing at least one draft pick is very high, albeit somewhere in the 17-23 range. The hit rate for All-NBA talent outside the lottery isn’t very high, but the 2025 class is loaded with plenty of potential. Though the Heat have done quality work in the middle of the draft in past years, selecting Bam Adebayo, Tyler Herro, Kel’el Ware and Jaime Jaquez outside in the 13-20 range while drafting Nikola Jovic at the back-end of the first round.
Adam Simon, you’re on the clock!
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