Welcome to the eighth installment of 30 Teams, 30 Years, 30 
Drafts featuring the Miami Heat. This series takes you through each of the teams’ draft picks from 1978-2008 and evaluates how they fared. The Heat finished with a pretty solid score that is definitely still counting. Great picks of theirs are fairly limited to Dwyane Wade, but they have drafted as many or more career long NBA players like Caron Butler, Kurt Thomas and Steve Smith.
Total Score: 2.743
View the previous teams and their scores here:
Boston Celtics – 3.885
Philadelphia 76ers – 2.561
Toronto Raptors – 2.659
Orlando Magic – 2.861
Charlotte Bobcats – 2.225
New York Knicks – 2.471
New Jersey Nets – 2.49
Atlanta Hawks - 1.258
Let us know in the comments below who you think their best and worst draft picks were.
To see how the score was calculated, check out the intro post here.
[table id=108 /]
1- Burton was elected to the Detroit Catholic High School Hall of Fame. I only note this cause I find it interesting that this exists.
2- Miner who was given to unfair nickname of “Baby Jordan” is one of the few happy stories among retired NBA players. He apparently invested his money from a limited NBA career wisely, so that he can afford to remain a stay at home dad during his retirement. He has remained mostly anonymous in his post playing days until very recently.
3- Stokes may have only appeared in 4 games, but his “rights” were owned by 5 teams (Heat, Bullets, Nuggets, Sonics and Raptors).
4- When searching for George Banks on wikipedia I was directed to a page about a mass murderer. Let’s hope they are not one in the same.
5- Mark Sanford was supposedly one of the top prospects in the 1997 draft before an altercation with his agent caused his stock to plummet. While he never played in the NBA it was not due to a lack of offers. Apparently he did not think playing in the NBA was necessary and did not believe playing in the NBA would lead to happiness for him. Quite interesting. He did however play for the Globetrotters where he earned his nickname of “Airplane”.
6- After a pro career mostly in Europe, Tim enlisted in the US Army and did a tour in Iraq. Part of me wanted to not subtract the two points for a first rounder with less than 100 games for this, but I felt it would not be true to the project. However, good job by you Tim and a thank you for serving our country.
7- Eddie is actually married to the sister of Mike Bibby and has three sons with her. What a gene pool! I would look out for Jaelen, Kaden and Kalek House in the NCAA towards the end of this decade.
8- I don’t know what’s more impressive. The fact that Miami managed to draft two Butler’s in 2002 or the fact that they both acquired 6 points for the Heat via my scoring system.
9- If you don’t think Dwyane has a spot for him reserved in Springfield, well then we have different definitions of what makes a HOF.
10- Dorell Wright managed to score more points in his 7th season than he did in his first 6 combined. Somehow this only resulted in him getting 3rd place in the Most Improved Player vote.
11- Drafted over David Lee
12- We will assume that Daequan gets to 400 games
13- We will give Beasley credit for a second season of 16 ppg (has one at 19.2) however we will subtract 4 for being drafted ahead of Westbrook and Love.
