The Miami Heat are masters at developing wing players and should be able to pick up an interesting one in the 2019 NBA Draft.
The Miami Heat don’t get enough credit for their development staff. They might be one of the best teams in the league at developing talent, routinely extracting the best out of their young players and consistently supplementing their rotation with internal development. G-League players like Tyler Johnson and Rodney McGruder have become rotation players in Miami; former problem children like Hassan Whiteside and James Johnson have become valuable players; and the Heat’s draft development has resulted in the Heat’s three best core pieces in Josh Richardson, Justise Winslow, and Bam Adebayo. Erik Spoelstra is one of the best at turning players into the best version of themselves and has kept the team competitive despite some ghastly decision-making from their front office since LeBron James left five years ago.
Because of that development success, the Heat are a really intriguing team to have the No. 13 pick in the 2019 NBA Draft. This year’s draft doesn’t have a ton in terms of top-end talent, but the middle of the draft is pretty stacked with wings who have tools that the Heat could turn into a fantastic rotation piece. These players are unlikely to hit in a lot of development situations, but Miami is one of the better environments for a lot of the players that will go between the 11th and 20th pick. As we’ll explain on the following pages, the Heat have a lot of good options this year to add a good wing to their roster, and they might be the best landing spot for a lot of these guys.