MIAMI _ In the case of Pat Riley v. NBA draft we move directly to our closing argument.
"Terry Rozier III. Thank you, your honor. The defense rests."
The timing on the docket could not have made it any easier to sway the jury, even as the Miami Heat's president remains steadfast in his belief that the draft essentially only is for losers, for the teams selecting at the very top of the process.
Because as Rozier continues to blossom for the Boston Celtics amid the injury absence of Kyrie Irving, it is worth reminding the emerging guard was selected at No. 16 by the Celtics out of Louisville in 2015.
And it also is worth, if the court reporter would be so kind, to then review Riley's comments this past week when asked about the Heat being without a first-round pick this June, with that No. 16 pick held by the Phoenix Suns as part of the 2015 trade for Goran Dragic.
"All we need," Riley said, "is another 16th pick this year. Correct? Is that would it would be? Sixteen? So all we need is another young player this year. We've got enough. We've got a good young core of players."
With Bam Adebayo, Justise Winslow, Josh Richardson and Tyler Johnson, it could be argued the Heat do.
But Johnson also is two years into a $50 million free-agent contract. Richardson is about to start a four-year, $42 million extension. Winslow could be into a similar extension this summer (as could Rozier).
And that's the problem when you mostly leave it to others to develop prospects. You wind up getting players who go from the rookie scale to something more substantial to work into your salary cap.
Adebayo, last season's No. 14 selection, for example, remains on the reasonable rookie scale for three more seasons, those salaries never to exceed $5.1 million.
To be fair, the No. 16 pick last year was D.J. Wilson and in 2016 was Guerschon Yabusele, somewhat bolstering Riley's notion of mid-round irrelevance.
"We hope that one of the guys we really like that we can sign on July the 1st might be tantamount to a first-round pick for us," Riley said of the pool of undrafted players, with the Heat also without a second-round pick this year.
"So, to be really honest with you, I'm not a draft-pick guy. You know that. I've taken the team to the bottom and we got Caron (Butler) at 10 (in 2002) and we got Dwyane (Wade, at No. 5 in 2003) and we got Beas at two and we got Justise and we got Bam Adebayo."
Of course, the question then becomes this: If the Heat had selected Russell Westbrook instead of Michael Beasley in 2008, Devin Booker or Myles Turner instead of Winslow in 2015 or even moved one spot up for Donovan Mitchell instead of Adebayo last year, would Riley have been more of a draft guy?
And even then, the Heat's collegiate scouting team of Chet Kammerer, Adam Simon, Keith Askins and Eric Amsler have been able to come up with gems such as Richardson, Johnson and Rodney McGruder with their dogged pursuits.
Imagine what they might have been able to accomplish with routine currency in the first round?
"I believe every other year is good enough," Riley said. "If you can get players in free agency, if you can get players that are 25, 26 years old that need a place to really develop and then you get a pick and another young player and then you get a pick, that's fine.
"The fact that we don't have a pick this year, will we try to get one? Maybe. But when you're drafting 15, 16, 17, 18, I'd much rather have Goran Dragic than those two picks."
But that's the rub, that when you have so few draft picks to put into play, you wind up also putting an unprotected 2021 first-rounder into play (having had one protected pick due to the Cavaliers at the time) for Dragic, who well could be gone from the Heat by then and perhaps gone from any level of NBA prominence at 35.
Pat Riley v. NBA draft surely will be back on the docket soon enough.
For now the jury remains out on the approach, with an interim verdict to come June 21 at Barclays Center in Brooklyn, when Riley sees what the Suns get and what the Heat could have gotten.
.jpg?w=600)
