Who will the HEAT select will the number five pick?

We are pretty much through the process of watching players. We had three players in today, and we have a couple more coming in tomorrow. I think where we are at with this is that we have really embraced this process of being up in the five spot and looked at a lot of guys and tried to evaluate who would best fit our situation. The other part of my job is to monitor interest in the pick or other trades that we might consider. We have been in the process of doing that and my job is to have some options for Coach (Pat) Riley when we come into the war room here on Thursday and have to make a decision. We try to have trade options, we try to have some trade down options, we try to have some trade out options and then we have to analyze those and kind of see at the moment of truth if any of those make sense compared to the player that we could draft. Overall the process has been one in which we have seen some guys there at five that could make some sense for us and now it’s just a matter of what happens above us and what our choices are at that point.

Do you know where the draft is going? Do you have a sense of where the number four pick is going?

I really don’t. I assume where there is smoke there is fire at some level. There’s a lot of talk about the possibility of maybe a trade at four, so I’m led to believe that there could be some truth to that, that people are trying to get up to that spot. There doesn’t seem to be much consistency with the names that are associated at four and the teams that are trying to move up. It seems like the talks about moving up are after players that probably will be drafted below us. So it’s hard to get the consistency of stories there, but there are some people that have talked to us about five, so it would make sense that there are some people also trying to move into the four spot.

Do you have any definitive offers for the number five pick in the draft? They are at the point where they can be definitive. They have been talked about enough, but at this point you don’t really want to make a definitive deal until you’re sure the team has given you their best offer. I do think this is a process, a lot of times we have been in position where we might not have the best asset, this may be different, we’re holding what we think is a fairly good asset with the five pick, and so we’re kind of waiting to see maybe at the last minute if people offer a little more. In past years we’ve been in a situation at some points in which to get a better asset we were willing to add a little more to the deal and try to get it over the top and this is more of a process of us waiting to see if someone else is really willing to throw the deal out there that would make some sense for us to get off the pick or move down or move out of the draft.

Is the spectrum for you gigantic? You could go pick a 5’10” player or a 7’2” player, is it that broad?

I think so because it’s really an evaluation of talent and future talent. I don’t think you can get to far down the road with the position, it’s always natural to start to look at guys who could slide right in, I think we were very fortunate last year with Caron (Butler) that it was a position we needed and it was a player we liked, but I do think you have to keep checking yourself out to make sure you are not liking the player because of a position you need. I do think we are in a position where, in Brian (Grant) and Eddie (Jones), we have two solid players, and in Caron we have a young player that had a good contribution. There are a lot of spots available on our team, so it’s not as though if you pick almost any position that there’s not going to be a chance for that guy to be in your rotation and that would be our hope, is we get somebody that is on the floor for us in our rotation, maybe it doesn’t have to be a starter, but somebody that could come in and play for us right away.

Does bringing in a guy for a second workout cement your decision or is it more to double check to make sure you didn’t miss anything the first time around?

I think that is for you to evaluate, at some points it might be for us to get another look and to figure out whether that’s the route we want to go or sometimes, as was the case last year, we felt comfortable with a player so we felt like we didn’t need to bring him back, so if I were to give you that I would be laying the cards out on the table a little bit. I think the way that this has worked we’ve had a chance to see almost all of the guys that are in our range, a couple of them by their directions were not, what we call, live workouts, they were more against the coach type of workouts. Some of those people were the people we wanted to come back and watch in more of a live workout type of situation to see how they handle a little more of a live workout, but I wouldn’t read too much into that, that’s not really the final indicator for us, it’s a comfort level with the player.

Is there a guy in the draft that you are super sold on, for example, if he were available, you would not make a trade, you would draft him, or is everything in play?

I think everything is in play, I really do. As Coach (Pat Riley) has stated this is really the start of the situation where we are in a rebuilding mode. So I think you have to be open to anything that might come down the road here in the next couple of days. I do think again that we hold an asset that we value, we certainly know that the draft business is one in which there are some questions, you can’t always be perfect. Like last night I was watching NBA TV and you get a little shaky in the knees if you look over the years at what’s happened sometimes in the draft and we’re not cocky about it, we’re humble in terms of making good decisions, but we’re also liking the fact that there are some good young players that we think are going to be there. It would take something, as we have said all along, it would take something pretty good for us to move down and take a lesser player or to move out of the draft. I think it would have to be something absolutely spectacular for us to just totally take the pick and move out of the draft for this year.

With (Maciej) Lampe, what are his strengths and weaknesses and is he any more prepared as an 18-year old than other 18-year olds might be?

Well (Maciej) Lampe is very intriguing, you don’t have to say much more than a seven footer with a nice stroke. Pavel (Podkolzine) was different in that he was even bigger but it was more of a low-post thing, (Chris) Kaman’s different in that he’s more of a banger and he’s a runner, but neither of those guys are in any kind of league from a perimeter aspect and this kid not only has a nice stroke from 15- to 17-feet, but goes beyond that. So I don’t want to oversell him, because I know you won’t believe me at this point in the process, but you have to value size and shooting and that’s two things he brings, as well as all the other aspects as he played in Division II. He hasn’t had the depth of international experience like (Dirk) Nowitzki had, but it doesn’t matter, he still walks into the gym and shoots the ball from three-point range with a nice stroke and you have to consider that.