Andy Elisburg is not a pessimist, but the Miami Heat general manager is a pragmatist.
So even with high hopes for this season’s roster, Elisburg made sure to protect the team with some insurance in last March’s trade with the Houston Rockets for Victor Oladipo.
Now, with the Heat playing through significant injury absences, and with COVID returning with a vengeance, such foresight has proven particularly prudent.
As part of the agreement to swap 2022 first-round picks for the worst of those held by the Rockets, Elisburg and the Heat front office added lottery protection. Should the Heat fail to make the playoffs, including losing in the play-in round, the Heat will keep their first-rounder and instead send a 2022 second-round pick to Houston. That will defer their second-round penalty payment to the NBA over the timing of the August addition of Kyle Lowry.
“I think you always have to be mindful,” Elisburg told the South Florida Sun Sentinel. “Certainly in any one season, anything could happen. And you want to sort of, if you’re able to, as much as you can, to protect the downside of where you are.
“Even though most times the expectations are to make the playoffs, not everyone does. And so you’ve got to be protective of it if you can.”
Such as been de rigueur for the Heat over the years, with the exception of the 2021 draft, when an unprotected first-round pick was included in the 2015 trade with the Phoenix Suns for Goran Dragic. At the time, the NBA had a rule in place that no more than two future first-rounders sent out could include protection.
“At the time,” Elisburg said, “there was an NBA rule that since has been changed, that was in effect at that time, that you could only have protections on two first-round draft picks. You couldn’t have protections on a third draft pick.”
The protections at the time were for the Heat’s 2016 first-round pick that was part of the 2010 sign-and-trade for with the Cleveland Cavaliers for LeBron James, and the first of the two first-round picks sent to the Suns for Dragic.
“So because we already had one outstanding, we could have protection on the first one, but we couldn’t put protection on the second one,” Elisburg said of the Dragic deal. “But the rule has since been changed. So as long you’re within the seven-year rule [a draft pick cannot be dealt more than seven years ahead] and the Stepien Rule [cannot be without successive future first-round picks], you can put protection on it. But at that point in time, the rule was in place at the time.”
That said, Elisburg said the Heat would never say never when it comes to dealing an unprotected first-round pick.
“Like anyone says, there’s nothing that’s never say never,” he said. “It obviously depends on the overall deal that you’re doing and what it is you’re doing. But I think for the most part, I’d say teams are very, very reluctant to certainly leave draft picks unprotected.”
As for the 2022 protected first-round pick swapped with the Rockets, should the Heat make the playoffs, they would receive the worst of the 2022 first-round picks of the Rockets or Brooklyn Nets (a pick swap acquired by Houston in the James Harden trade).
So, most likely, the Nets’ first-rounder.
That should have Heat fans rooting against the Nets, just as Miami Dolphins fans are rooting against the San Francisco 49ers, with the Dolphins holding that 2022 NFL first-round pick.
“I’m aware of it,” Elisburg said of any Nets struggles benefiting the Heat. “But at this point in time, I wouldn’t say ‘following’ it. If you get down to the end of the season, certainly you may be looking at those things a little bit more when it starts to become clear where everyone’s seeding gets locked in.”
The Nets’ pick, going into the weekend, would have the Heat selecting at No. 28.
“Right now, everything is so volatile, so many people are kind of up and down, it doesn’t take much for things to change,” Elisburg said. “As you get closer to it, it becomes a little bit more of a thing you start to pay attention to.”
