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Daequan Cook and Draft Pick Traded on Eve of NBA Draft

June 23, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Well, the Heat have pulled a trade – and is it a sign of things to come? The Heat traded Daequan Cook and the 18th draft pick to the Oklahoma City Thunder for the 32nd pick.

Yep, that is not a misprint. The Heat traded down and had to give up Cook to do it, a once promising shooter who is still very young. Not so fast, ye cynical ones. This was definitely a cost-cutting move and will put the Heat even closer to where they want to be financially to re-sign Wade and possibly two other max-level players.

The Heat shed Cook’s $2.2 million contract and also the potential $3 million for the 18th pick. Coupled with the fact that this is not as deep of a draft as they Heat would like, they decided to deal out and ante up for the free agent market.

Of course, there is much speculation about where Lebron James will sign. Again, the Heat seem to be right there with the best suitors and in many ways, make the most sense. If James wants to win, he can power up with Wade and soak up the South Florida lifestyle and burn his image in the retina of every post season basketball spectator for the next 5 or so years.

As for Cook, it seems his potential has taken a dive for the Heat. Sure, he is still very young and possesses a quick release on his shot and the ability to get hot from outside and score in bunches. The question is will he live up to that billing on another young team, the OKC Thunder? Good luck to Cook – but this move for the Heat seems more akin to a power building team as opposed to a rebuilding team. We’ll see if the architect, Pat Riley, can put it together.

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Pat Bev Rolls Up His Sleeves for Miami

July 5, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Patrick Beverley, traded from the Lakers to the Heat, knows about hard work. After leaving Arkansas for Ukraine, due to some academic problems, Beverley has something to prove. Put together some clips from the net that will tell his story a bit.

Got to like this kid’s mentality. He has been out there and understands what is at stake. He has a different perspective than most kids coming out of college to play for an NBA team. He also seems hungry and ready to play in Miami – and with Chris Quinn as his main competition for the backup role, he has a pretty good chance to make this team.

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Heat Draft Picks Look to Catch On

July 5, 2009 By Leave a Comment

The Miami Heat had very little potential impact in this year’s NBA draft – mostly because they had a successful season in getting back to the playoffs. Last year, the Heat finished with only 15 wins and the #2 pick overall – which turned out to be Michael Beasley. In Beasley’s first year, he showed an advanced repertoire of offensive moves and a knack for scoring, but his defense and inexperience kept him on the bench for stretches. He will look to take the next step this offseason through training camp and coming back as a 2nd year NBA veteran.

The Heat, however, still have lots of needs to address and they focused on several spots with this draft.  For starters, they had the 43rd pick (to complete the trade with Indiana from last year) and the 60th pick (from Cleveland). There isn’t a whole lot to do with those picks except reach for projects – and that is precisely what team president Pat Riley did with those spots. After all, they traded for Mario Chalmers who was the 34th pick in last year’s draft from the Timberwolves.

The Heat drafted Marcus Thornton with the 43rd pick, from LSU then quickly dealt the rights to Thornton to the New Orleans Hornets for future considerations, i.e. 2nd round draft picks for 2010 and 2012. The Heat then traded for combo guard, Patrick Beverley from the Lakers. The 6’1″ guard from Arkansas had some documented problems while playing at Arkansas for two seasons and spent last season in Ukraine. He has a knack for scoring and Riley compared him to Mario Chalmers and Rajon Rondo and also stressed the fact that he expects Beverley to make the team. Seeing as the Heat also extended Chris Quinn’s contract, the backup pointguard spot is definitely going to be a battle.

The final draft pick for the Heat, indeed for the entire NBA draft, was Robert Dozier from Memphis. Dozier is very long and athletic, something Riley stated the team was looking for, and is a project of sorts. He has a tangible skill in shot blocking, and at 6’9″ could play down low and possibly defend the wing.

Even though Miami had no first round picks, they were able to get solid value out of deals made on draft day in acquiring Beverley, a possible scoring threat at the guard position to come off the bench and provide energy, while Dozier could provide more length and athleticism. The Heat also aquired two draft picks for future 2nd rounds. As the Magic and Cavs beefed up on draft day deals (Vince Carter to Orlando, Shaq to Cleveland), the Heat would be hard pressed to match such moves as their agenda has to deal with focusing on 2010′s free agent market and keeping Wade in Miami. The Heat are a playoff caliber team, the only question is is there enough growth potential for Wade’s supporting cast to do a better job supporting him in the regular season and the playoffs to keep this team moving in the right direction – up. That was not going to be something addressed in this draft anyway.

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Heat Trade Darnell Jackson

June 27, 2008 By 1 Comment

Looks like his career as a member of the Heat was all too brief. The Heat selected forward Darnell Jackson from Kansas with the 52nd pick and decided to trade him to the Cleveland Cavaliers for a 2009 second round pick (The Cavs have two and the Heat will receive the lesser of the two picks).

This deal makes sense for a couple of reasons – the Heat have several forwards on the roster (Haslem, Marion, Wright, Beasley, Barron, Lasme and Powell) and Jackson offers a similar skill set to what is there. Also, to get Mario Chalmers the Heat had to trade away 2 future 2nd round picks – this gets one of them back.

Second Round Shuffle

Let’s make sense of this. For the 2009 draft, Miami has three second round picks: their own owed to them plus one from Indiana (for Stanko Barac) and one from Philadelphia (for the Daequan Cook deal). When the Heat acquired the draft rights to Mario Chalmers, they traded two of those picks plus cash (up to $3M according to NBA rules) to get the Jayhawk point guard.

Now, in trading Jackson, the Heat acquired another 2nd round pick for 2009 (the Cavaliers have two themselves, one from the Bulls as well as their own pick) bringing their total up to 4. Again, two of those picks are being used in the Chalmers deal, so Miami – at this point – has one first round pick and two second round picks for the 2009 NBA draft.

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Heat Land Beasley

June 27, 2008 By Leave a Comment

“We love Michael. He’s an incredible athlete. He’s a great scorer. I don’t even want to get into talking with you about the numbers we’ve analyzed. They’re really off the charts.”

Pat Riley, we are glad you made it easy for Heat fans today – even if it required an assist from Randy Pfund and the rest of the Heat’s scouting department.

Sure there was talk about OJ Mayo and Jerryd Bayless, but you had to think it was just Riley being Riley. As the team president, he had a duty to make sure all tires where kicked and everything was checked out under the hood. The Heat made the right choice – drafting the most talented player in the entire draft #2. In some ways, I feel like the Heat got a steal because Beasley, by all rights, should have been drafted #1 overall.

Realistically, the Heat were locked in with picking Beasley. Erik Spoelstra, the Heat’s new caretaker, characterized the talk about not taking Beasley as a non-issue. “In the last couple days, we felt very comfortable that if he was available we were very excited to take the pick,” Spoelstra said.

Where there other deals on the table? You bet, but Riley has maintained all along it had to be something that blew him away.  “They were good players,” Riley said in regards to the possible trade scenarios. “But I think this kid’s going to be a great player.”

And is Beasley here for the long haul? Sure seems that way – both Beasley and his entourage say he is excited to be living in Miami. The Heat also say the same thing about keeping Beasley, “Michael is definitely picked to play for the Heat,” Spoelstra said.

What can we expect from Beasley, the Little Apple transplant who spent one year at Kansas State who is now becoming a resident of South Beach? Frank Martin, Beasley’s lone college coach and a Miami native and FIU graduate, said “It’s a franchise since Pat Riley’s been there that’s been a regular in the playoffs and won a championship just a few short years ago. They are all about working and competing and that’s what Mike’s about. I think it’s a perfect marriage.”

Now Beasley can stop answering questions about his immaturity – he is only 19 for God’s sake! – and focus on playing basketball.

It will be interesting to see how he comes into camp. Right away, he is going to come in with a pair of players that were rivals of his in college – the two Kansas Jayhawks Darnell Jackson and Mario Chalmers. One thing is for sure, there is mutual admiration for everyone involved. “My hard work finally paid off, and I won’t stop working. I’m going to continue to work and try to ride this thing out,” Beasley said.

And he’ll do it in a Heat jersey. Alongside Dwyane Wade and Shawn Marion. Not a bad first gig coming out of college.

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