With the 2022 NBA Draft tonight and the Miami HEAT on the board at pick No. 27, we sat down with HEAT Vice President of Basketball Operations and Assistant General Manager Adam Simon to discuss his preparation for one of the biggest days in the league schedule.
Couper Moorhead: This is the first time in a few years it’s been something close to a normal draft process, a normal draft schedule. What has changed back to normal for you, what have we gotten back to?
SHOP
Adam Simon: It’s our first time having workouts in our gym since 2019, since the Tyler Herro draft. 2020 was the bubble year, so we were able to go and see players. We couldn’t bring them in. And last year we didn’t have a pick so we decided not to bring players in.
Now that everything is back, to a degree, what has changed the most about the draft in the last ten years, as far as the entire apparatus? Is anything drastically different, or is it still the same old draft?
The difference is that there are more players who are giving you less to work with coming into the NBA younger. Before, guys go to college, or they play internationally, and they play well and they’re either automatically in the draft or they put their name in – but there’s something that they had done that made you say, ‘Hey, this player should be coming out.’ Now there’s a lot of players that have less of a body of work. There are players who have played very little on their college team, and you have to make a decision on them. That’s different than back in the day.
And then there’s just more information. You get more intel, personality analysis, psychological, medical. You’re getting analytical information. You’re just getting a lot thrown at you.
Some of the years there just hasn’t been a pick, but it’s also been a while since the team has picked this late in the first round. Precious Achiuwa was 20, but that’s still the middle of the draft. Last time it was this late was 2014. What changes at this spot in the order versus a pick in the lottery?
A bigger group of players to evaluate. If you have multiple picks, there’s a bigger gap of players. There’s a team that has four picks. They’re getting everybody that they can get in for workouts. So if you have one pick, our pick at 27, a lot of the guys at the top you aren’t going to get to see them. The group is big. It’s big from the back of the group that doesn’t think they’re going to get to you all the way to a lot of second rounders. If you’re at the top, it’s a smaller group of guys that are targeted up there.
Just more players to look at. You have the guys who are projected to be late first and then all the guys projected to be in the second who are hoping to be late first.
That means a lot of guys to bring in for workouts, and something I’ve always been curious about is how do those workouts come together? How are they organized? How is it determined what’s a group workout, what is individual? And then is there a one size fits all where every guy at a position is going to run the same drills, or do you tailor each day to the talent?
I start with how we rank them and I just go down my list. You’re going to know that, picking at 27, the guys who are project to go in the lottery are not likely going to come workout for us. So you just keep going down [the rankings]. Then you finally start hitting on players who you think are key guys, they say they’ll come in and they give you a date or options for dates. You start by having that player commit to that date. Then you go to the next player on the list, find out when they’re interested. You pick a bunch of dates.
Does it happen where you or other teams are trying to match up specific players in a workout?
You try. Sometimes the agents want that. They usually do.
As a prove it against the competition for that draft slot?
Yeah, they want to know who they’re working out against. If you give them a name of someone rated higher than their guy, or who is in their wheelhouse, then they’re going to want that.
You mentioned your rankings going into the workout process, but eventually those rankings have to solidify. How does that work? How and when are you locking in your Big Board? And as a sidebar to that, how does the current roster composition factor into that? Is it a talent board or is a fit board?
Leading up to the draft I have it tiered. I have a group that I think is the top of the draft.
This is your personal ranking?
Right, with the input of [Keith Askins, Eric Amsler and Dave Beyer] and our scouts [Randy Embry, Jack Fitzgerald, Bob Staak]. We’ll have our Top 5 guys, and then the next group of 5-10 guys. At that point, leading into it, we’re thinking if any of these 5-10 guys, at 27 we’re going to be comfortable with them. We’ve gathered information, done all of our reports, we’ve watched them, so we tier them out. From there, it’s a grouping, it’s not a ranking.
As we go forward and I have meetings with our scouts, bringing all of what we have to the table, and we continue the evaluation process. You have to always prepare that you can move up in the draft, maybe acquire a pick, so you’re going to have to do your board, but the base of it is the pick that you have.
The workouts are not going to change everything we know about a player and sway us too much, but at the end of the day this is subjective. My goal isn’t to be right June 1. However we get there, it’s to have the right order the day of the draft. I try to keep an open mind as long as I can.
So it’s next Thursday, it’s Draft Day, what does Adam Simon’s day look like? Not necessarily what you’re working on, but your routine.
I get my walk in. I’m going to clear my mind. I’m going to be happy. The work is done. There’s different work that day, potential trades and, through the night of the draft, trying to go get players that don’t get drafted. But that day I always enjoy waking up. Enjoying the morning because we’re not in a rush to get here. We’re ready.
Get the exercise in, clear your head, be ready to work and ready to run the draft room, and have everything ready to go.
Fans are educated enough by now that they know to follow along during the draft to see what happens, see what’s being tweeted ahead of time, but that there’s also the period after the draft and they’re waiting to see who you get on the line late into the night. Are agents getting in touch with you throughout the draft for that process?
There’s different levels of post draft. If a player gets drafted they come off the board. As we start going down, you try to know what they want. Our most successful draft night, non-drafted player is Duncan Robinson. And Tyler Johnson, too, but Duncan more recently. We had the dialogue with his agent way before the night of the draft. As he didn’t get drafted, we just kept making sure that if he doesn’t get drafted, he’s going to come with us. And he did.
The idea of grading the draft the night of the draft is a little silly just because these things take a long time to play out. But personally, how do you evaluate yourself at the end of this process? What gives you peace, what keeps you up at night afterwards?
The players that end up being really good that you didn’t pick. You’re dealing with young people and I try not to let it bother me if you make mistakes because it’s unpredictable. You just want to enjoy your hits. Whatever you can do to help the organization, that’s what you do it for. How do you grade it? There’s several ways to make your team better. Draft. Free Agency. Adding players during the summer or during the season. Trades. Over the course of the year, to continue to find players is what makes me happy. It doesn’t have to necessarily come through the draft or post-draft. Many of the players we’ve gotten that we hit on came during the season. Gabe Vincent. Max Strus. Omer Yurtseven. Derrick Jones. Hassan Whiteside. Kendrick Nunn. They all came during the season.
The night of the draft is very competitive. Normal year, 60 players get drafted. So if every team gets one player post-draft, that’s 90 players. If every team gets two, 120. Three? 150. It starts to thin out. You’re just hoping to get a handful of them and you’re hoping it turns out. You want to fill out your Summer League team, you want to find players that will go into your G-League program.
Do you have a favorite draft memory?
There was a time that I was young that I had a strong opinion on a player, and we didn’t get him. And he was still on the board and I was fighting for him, and I was all pouty. And they told me, ‘Stop being all upset’.
Certainly when guys get picked right in front of the guy you want, that’s always a good feeling. We knew when we were picking Tyler that we needed something to break our way, based on our board. We needed two players to go so we could get him. We needed that help. When you have the guy you want and you need a little help, that’s always a good feeling.
There was one year, where we went perfect and hit them all as far as who was going in what order in front of us. And then we had to make a decision. It’s a fun night, but it’s a lot of decisions.