He’s not expected to be drafted late in the first round.
Last night, the Mavs Draft Twitter account reported that Arkansas guard JD Notae will work out with the Miami Heat.
Source: Arkansas guard JD Notae will work out with the Miami Heat tomorrow #HEATCulture
— Mavs / Magic Draft (@MavsDraft) June 16, 2022
Notae is a 23-year-old point guard who transferred from Jacksonville to Arkansas after his sophomore season, forcing him to redshirt the 2019-20 college basketball season. He’s also not expected to be drafted in the first round and may even go undrafted.
Is this the Heat covering all their bases, or are they thinking of trading down, giving up their first-round pick for, say, two second-round picks?
For what it’s worth, Pat Riley said during the end-of-year presser, “As far as our draft choices, they’re valuable to us. We finally got them back in order a little bit. So we’re going to use them unless something presents itself that causes you to say, ‘Hey, I think I’ll do this,’ that will transcend drafting somebody.”
Of course, Riley was referring to how the sign-and-trades for LeBron James and Chris Bosh sent multiple picks out the window. And then the year after James left for Cleveland, Riley traded two first-round picks for Goran Dragic — just before Bosh suffered blood clots that ended up ending his career.
That left the Heat without many draft picks for the last decade. But now, as Riley said, they’re back in order. And Miami can only trade the 2021 pick thanks to the KZ Okpala trade from February. The Heat amended the protections on their 2023 pick the Oklahoma City Thunder had already owned, pushing it to 2025.
Teams cannot trade first-round picks in consecutive seasons, so the move allowed Miami to trade their 2022 pick. As I mentioned back when the trade was made, Miami could also draft a player next week and then immediately trade him along with their 2023 pick.