Miami Heat Drafts Revisited: 2003 — Dwyane Wade | Five on the Floor

Miami Heat Drafts Revisited: 2003 — Dwyane Wade | Five on the Floor

welcome to latest welcome to latest episode five on the floor in the five reason Sports Network thanks for joining us on your favorite podcast app on Apple Apple podcast and on Android we recommend Five Reasons YouTube channel or Spotify also check out our new Discord server it’s still kind of new uh $2.99 per month communicate with Heat fans and with us also get the latest draft and free agent news first we put things first there these days everybody uh link is right here in description on the podcast feed and on the YouTube channel again this is off the floor our Discord server check it out for $2.99 cents per month also check out the great sponsors of the five reason Sports Network a lot of rain last week right uh particularly uh in my way in Broward County East you might want to reach out to our friends over at Water cleanup if you think you got a leak they can do the leak detection for you the damage assessment they’ll do everything of course uh we recommend the preventative coverage check them out at wcu.com that’s wcu.com water cleanup of Florida more than 7 fstar reviews on Google they service all the way from bokeh on down actually they service North of that as well but we know a lot of our our listeners are South so we do want to tell you they will service dat in Broward counties check them out at Water cleanup water cleanup of Florida on Twitter and wcu.com if you’ve got the Schmutz they got the guts and now today’s episode five on the floor ride for my dogs where the thing you can check the score Hustle Hard couple SC bubble FR just like brother said you in trouble y Che the FL got it all B y’all SE the block stop one hand and P trust it’s have the guts we here to bring the heat y’all can hang it up welcome to five on the floor a daily Insider show on the Miami Heat and the NBA featuring Ethan scholet Greg San and Alex Toledo plus others from the five reason Sports Network all right welcome back to five on the floor we are in draft season we’ll be getting you more draft coverage as we go forward here I can tell you that Alex and Brady will likely be at the arena for the draft I will actually likely be in New York for the draft Greg will be anchoring a lot of our coverage you can also of course check it out on the Discord server as I mentioned and on playback. TV5 RSN so we’re looking forward to this Draft Miami Heat pick we’re also looking back at past drafts and what happened during those drafts and whether or not they took the right player and how history might have been different if they had taken someone else so essentially what we we’re doing is we’ve thrown a bunch of these years into a hat and since we do have a couple of different platforms here uh five on the floor we drafted first I’ll just say that we drafted first um because I made that rule uh but Eternal Matt those guys they’re going to get to do a lot of cool stuff on playback and we’ll join them for some of that as well where they’re going to take some of the other years so we’re going to start here with the year that changed the Miami Heat franchise which was 2003 and we’re going to look back at what led up to this now we did consider doing some drafts prior to this and we might by the end of this time depends how many days of episodes we need to fill um so we could have done 2002 with the Kuran Butler draft and of course there were the pre- rilly draft cyle Harold Miner Glenn rice which I know is one Greg probably would have wanted to do Willie Burton uh Sherman Douglas you know there there there was Min Harold Miner but we know that like we’d be boring Alex and Brady to death um so we want go that direction yeah we didn’t want to go back quite that far and uh so so you know we figured at least we’d start in this Millennium and we’re starting with Dwayne Wade um 2003 fifth pick overall I want to take this back a little bit before we get to the actual selection of Dwayne and I the fact that this is 21 years ago is just making G me really ill um but what people have to remember is that the heat were in a two-year Funk okay uh the Heats valleys haven’t lasted very long under Pat Riley but they had they had some okay uh and then this particular one it was like okay kind trying to create a new build so they had the zo build the zo and Timmy build which was successful except for the playoff results really like regular season it was really good um one year they beat the Knicks they Advanced to lose to B Jordan in the Conference Finals the other three years they lost to the Knicks in a heartbreaking fashion in the final game um and then of course they pivoted around zo and brought in some other players Eddie Jones Brian Grant Anthony Mason but then zo got sick and so that didn’t pan out the way they wanted and so essentially they had this one really weird year which was 20012 2002 where it was like every like seventh man on another team ended up on the heat right like Greg let’s go through the list you do one and I’ll do one okay here I’ll do one first Travis best Kendall Gil Cedric sabalos Malik Allen no I was he that year I think he came in later oh did he oh okay he wasn’t one of those Journeymen uh I I’ll give you another Jimmy Jackson who actually hit a bunch of big shots like if you would ask strick Rod Strickland did Rod Strickland Kendall Gil or Jimmy Jackson ever play for the heat the majority of people would say no right like that year didn’t happen although Jimmy Jackson was really good for them Gil was okay uh best wasn’t bad from uh some was it 0607 or 0708 like when they had Penny hard away I might have been 0708 yeah reminds me of that the most random guys to ever show up on the heat umk Chris Quinn I think he came in as a part of that too yeah no no it’s true well look this 200202 team again it just like they were just shuffling in Parts um you know I I I just remember Cedric sabalos eating a lot of Cheetos before games that’s my memory of that that season uh two Love Culture baby that’s right two yeah that was not a heat culture season uh 2010 excuse me 2010 2002 though they drafted 10th and again we’re not going to do that Draft today but was really the first big break that the heat had caught in a draft in a while which was Karan Butler who was supposed to go top five or six slip to 10 now there’s another draft we’re going to do 2015 where a player slipped to 10 and it actually kind of effed up their sort of plan uh which you know Justice not necessarily better um but that was 2015 but in 2002 like the Kon absolute SL slam duck he was he was great yes he was great in college uh at Yukon and of course he’s still with the organization now but that team was awful Eddie Jones was kind of like the carryover star who wasn’t supposed to be um he was being paid like one but really they didn’t expect him to have to be the lead guy and so you had Eddie you had Cedric saal I think that year the Year Malik Allen came in right like I feel like that was a Malik Allen he was on the team the year before but he started the year that you’re referencing and they also had Anthony Carter and Travis best as their point guards I remember heading into the draft that we’re about to talk about it was all about are you going to upgrade at the four or upgrade at the one um those were like the two key points for Heat fans and it was just interesting to see that lead up to the draft yeah no doubt and so let’s go to the lead up to the draft which actually goes back further which I will never forget um I’ve worked around Tim Donovan uh VP of media relations I believe is the official title now or maybe it’s a bigger title than Tim of course uh for those who don’t know came down with Pat Riley from the Knicks uh so Tim’s been here very very very he doesn’t want me to remind him but he’s been here a very long time it is unusual to have a pet R director and then not only that but the number two with the heat Rob Wilson’s been here almost as long he came in from um a few years later so Tim I can remember making a phone call to me he was not happy about a column that I wrote um for the Sun Sentinel because I wrote that the heat should lose their last game of the 20022 2003 season uh to get a better chance to move up to try to get Chris Bosch and if if for people who don’t um who don’t remember the circumstances of this it was LeBron right and there was this kind of you know like folklore story about Darko Milotic and then there was additionally Carmelo who had just come off you know a national championship in his one season in college and then it got a little murky but it was the feeling was that Bosch was probably the fourth best player um of course and as we talk about this draft you know what happened between number two and number three uh essentially what I was told was that Larry Brown did not want Carmello uh with Detroit um I was actually told that by Rip Hamilton so that’s a pretty good source um I would think and so essentially yeah I aggregated so essentially uh K they took milisic um and he was a bust I mean I I shouldn’t say but this a current Heat player who played with dark was get and Darko was yeah jur still out Darko was getting paid more than this player in Minnesota this player was the best player on the Wolves you could probably figure out who that player was it was not Jimmy uh and the idea that Darko would be paid more than Kevin Love at any point is sort of outrageous but anyway he was the number two pick of the draft and uh and Carmello was third and of course if Detroit took Carmello you never know what would have happened they ended up winning a championship going forward um with taesan Prince’s they’re three but if they’d gotten Carmelo would he been the six man to start you never know uh because Darko didn’t contribute to that team so anyway I’ll let you guys jump in here but I just want to close the loop on what happened the last day of the regular season so they were they should have lost to Toronto and it was admitted to me later that yes we should have lost Toronto but we suck at that um and so they won and so that put the heat in the number five spot uh in the draft but if you go back to the projections of that draft Dwayne Wade was not supposed to go five he was supposed to go nine to the Bulls okay that was the feeling that he would end up in Chicago now you guys remember who Chicago drafted Kirk Hinrich there you go who ended up being a pain in the ass for Dwayne his entire career basically and and actually Kirk Hinrich is is the answer another great trivia question because he was the impetus for the whole shut up and manage her own team thing because it was Kirk hinrich’s dirty foul uh that ended the Heat’s 27 game winning streak in Chicago that led LeBron to whine about it after the game which led Danny a to whine about it on Wei which led LeBron to tell us in New Orleans that he was annoyed at Dany age which led Pat Riley to try to save the long-term future of LeBron with the heat which didn’t work by basically telling Dany a to shut the [ __ ] up and manage his own team and of course you know we that’s that’s the legend of all that stuff so anyway they were supposed to lose that game to Toronto they didn’t okay they were thank God right do you guys remember who they were projected to take at five uh I know a couple guys one uh it was named uh maik Lampe was a big mock draft guy like if you go back there there were a lot of people that had him as the Malik Allen replacement as a four for Miami uh at the five pick but also there was a lot of people that had Chris Cayman and then the two guards TJ Ford and Kirk Hinrich I was on the Kirk Hinrich bandwagon I thought he’d slide next to Eddie Jones you’d have a starter that’s where I was heading see I wasn’t think big enough because obviously they got Dwayne and that changed everything but um those were the names to me that as I you know kind of think back to that draft th those were the ones that I had keened in on the most and I I like TJ Ford a lot but I just didn’t think that they’d take that small of a guard uh so really Hinrich was who I was expecting I was surprised that it was Dwayne Wade but then the minute I saw on play I I knew that it would be a fit and we can talk about that later but uh those were the names that floating around that I remember yeah I I Hinrich and Ford were the two that I heard the most I you know it’s funny because uh Pat will dispute uh as you guys know uh he will dispute that he was gonna take Chris Cayman in fact he’s brought that up at a couple of press conferences since because he knows that that’s a narrative um uh some will say he was gonna take Chris cman uh of course he’s framed it as we discussed a lot of guys and I can’t remember exactly what he said so I apologize if I’m I’m misstating uh his viewpoint on this uh but you know again the The Legend of this came out that essentially Pat was on the treadmill uh watching Kentucky in the Elite 8 against Dwayne and Dwayne had like that was his breakout I remember watching that being like what that that kid’s an NB like that I mean he looks like an NBA star type player he he had an NBA body um and all of that uh but there was a there was some Buzz around Cayman but I’m with you gr I it was more Ford and Hinrich I think and and it’s actually kind of flipped because Hinrich ended up going nine so I I just want to get to uh it’s interesting to look back at this so Al I’ll I’ll quiz you on some of this okay um if I was to say to you uh okay here here we go here so basically if I I know you don’t think this is a perfect statistic but I I’ll give it to you because it’s over a large enough sample size VOR which is this basketball reference stat that they use which I don’t know box score estimated the points per 100 team possessions that a player contributed by the replacement player translated to average team and pro rated to an 82 Game season okay multiply by 2.70 to convert to wins over replacement all right leement player correct thank you value over replacement player LeBron James’s vorp is 151.90 is second in that draft Alex Dwayne yes and it wasn’t particularly close actually um so dway dway Dwayne went five and he was at 62.8 BOS oh excuse me Carmelo was at 36.7 so this is over the spanic careers yeah yes while while playing three more years in Dwayne wow Bosch was at 31.1 of course his career was cut short David West was fifth um and he was drafted 18th at the time by I guess New Orleans right uh and Kyle corver was sixth out of kraton the 51 50 first pick in that draft that kind of tracks like I mean David West was really good for New Orleans at a certain point there and then he was like a just a big part of those Pacers teams corver was a part of some good teams too and was one of the best Shooters like that kind of tracks but the fact that it’s a big difference between him and Melo I think is what kind of stands out there yeah well and it’s not particularly surprising to me except for the fact that Dwayne played 8,000 fewer minutes exactly um yeah and the other thing is uh if you go down this list a little bit it’s then Boris di pick 21st Hinrich Matt Boner finally another lottery pick Hinrich got in there you see how many non-lottery picks you’re saying right now exactly and then Matt Boner Josh 45th what Josh Howard who was picked 29th I didn’t have the best moments against the Heat in the finals uh Mo Mo Williams LeAndre Barbosa Luke renau and then you get to Carlos Delino and our own James Jones who actually was 15th a good though he picked F 49th yes and then TJ Ford and the TJ Ford’s a little unfair he played eight seasons uh he had back problems and and so that’s why he was at a leag uh by the way just for the record Kendrick Perkins uh ended up 24th in vorp uh of this draft he was picked 27th Al he did win a championship that we we never failed to hear the end of honestly um so when we come back for break I want to go to you guys on this uh kind of when you knew kind of when you knew that Not only was this the right pick but this was like a fr franchise changing player before we get to that though tell you a little bit about our friends over at Jersey 305 hey it’s Ethan skullnick for the five reasons Sports Network we’ve got a great new sponsor that fits with us perfectly it’s called jerseys 305.com that’s jerseys 305.com this is your home for deadstock and vintage jerseys from the heat Panthers Dolphins Marlins and the other local teams their mission was born from a passion for wearing jerseys of the old Styles and the past players jerseys 305 aims to make every fan stand out from the crowd with unique pieces that you don’t commonly see anymore maybe 10 15 20 years ago but not today and jerseys 305 was created by the fans for the fans they die hards just like you in fact they’re probably listening to this episode right now so check them out jerseys 305 their partnership with five reason Sports celebrating with a 10% discount on the next purchase using the code five a checkout unlock your exclusive savings on the entire vintage collection all right welcome back to five on the floor um when did you know Greg it was early it was like um pre-season you could just tell that there was um I remember I got a text from somebody that said he’s already the best play on that team and I didn’t believe it because I thought it was Lamar Odum the prized free agent uh acquisition and uh it was pretty apparent very early that it was Dwayne um I’ll never forget um just early in that year they lost a ton to start that season and the fact that they were able to rally and get all the way up to the four seed in a weird conference where 42 wins got to a four seed um there were moments like he dunked onr Christian lner I was at a game in that first year and it was one of the most um athletic plays a Heat player I think has ever made and uh so there were just those moments right until the playoffs came and then obviously the story goes as the story goes but it was very early on uh I would say preseason even just that first game in Philly you could see flashes speak speaking of flash he wasn’t that yet uh Alex so it’s definitely a different answer for me because I didn’t start liking the sport of basketball until about 2005 kind of late 2005 so I was already you know it already been a couple Seasons deep into the weight experience what I will say though is he is the reason I fell in love with the sport right like the just watching him play somebody who can be that athletic and that agile um that explosive and also with just that amount of skill it was just a joy to watch you know and and he was you know he was an extremely influ influential just person as as far as like you know me growing up just because I tuned into every game because of him and you know that’s I guess that kind of speaks for itself in that way and you know um uh the like the first season that I fully started to watch every game for the heat is when they won the championship so it’s it’s kind of uh you know I’ve had a nice little experience here right but um you know dwade is the got I was guy I wasn’t a sports guy as a kid and then I I played NBA Street you know shout out to those that have played it and NBA Street like I’m like oh basketball is awesome I’m gonna start following the NBA and it’s like oh wait we have this like stud on our team who is just insane to watch every night and and then like what happened happened and he won a championship at 24 which like not many superstars have done so you know just getting to watch that you know right from the beginning um you know it was just awesome well when I was writing I think I wrote more words about Dwayne way than anybody else um in fact I don’t even think it’s close um although although bleach report me got me to write a lot about LeBron but um I I I would say from the beginning um you know there’s very uh for me there’s there’s three athletes I’ve covered from the beginning of their Hall of Fame careers till the end uh Dwayne Jason Taylor and Zack Thomas um and uh that’s a cool list DNE though yeah and they’re all great guys and and I well him too yeah no and I will say I’m proud that I have really good relationships with all three um uh and and there I I appreciate all three of them in different ways and and I I I can’t believe I didn’t go to any of their three Hall of Fame Ceremonies for various conflicts and other reasons uh F more than five reasons but I regret that I I’ll say that uh with Dwayne there a couple things here uh the first thing was at the opening press conference uh you know I have a column that I I cannot find because any anything I was right about gets scratched from the web uh but I actually I I loved the pick from the very beginning um and I I wrote it was the fans loved the pick I was at the arena and the fans love the pick and I think it was because they recognized the name it was and they couldn’t spell it but uh but they recognized the name because um basically uh you know there were a lot of foreign guys that were starting to get drafted then and it was like so they were getting mixed in with these college players that that they’d uh that they’d seen so um you know that that was the first thing was kind of I I titled it the innocent beginning um that’s what that’s what Pat titled it that day and I remember uh Dwayne was very modest and um softspoken didn’t really have a lot to say Obviously his personal life Chang ched over time in quite a few ways from that opening press conference but uh son in his lap son was in his lap Z was in his lap and I I can I can remember and he was talking about a shoe collection I do remember that uh but but where I kind of got it was summer league um he faced LeBron’s team they they had um we I was in Orlando and and you know and Dwayne put on a show in that game there were glimpses in everybody was there to watch Braun but there were glimpses of Dwayne in that game um I was also in Philadelphia for that game that you mentioned Greg where he went up against Iverson which is a game he talked about in his Hall of Fame speech um but I I I think that that the the real the real moment for me actually came a little bit later um and people are going to talk about the New Orleans series and uh and all that and and the shot in the lane and and I I I have a particular affinity for that one because I’m sitting there looking Goofy in my glasses right behind the Baseline uh as he makes the shot but um there was there was another moment in that series that that struck me which was Dwayne struggled some in that series people don’t remember like that first playoff series he had three awful shooting games um but he all he bounced back after everyone and and that to me was kind of the sign of resilience with him that lasted throughout his career and ended up becoming a commercial right fall down seven get up eight um and and you kind of saw it in that series and it wasn’t just the runner in the lane there was a huge three he made in that series also and that’s why it stuck out so much when our good friend Stan Van Gundy took him off the floor in that last game against Indiana a series in which he announced himself more publicly with the dunk over Germaine um but he took him off the floor for Ray for Allon because rayer had a better chance to make a three there but I think that was the last time Dwayne way was ever taken off the floor at the end of the game so I to me it was more that New Orleans series that it was like okay cuz the other thing people don’t remember about Dwayne’s rookie season was it was choppy there were there were times in there where there were a lot of turnovers he was playing position he wasn’t supposed to play before but I’m gonna cycle back to that original column because I always throw this in because Dan lebatard’s beaten me at everything in life but that particular day because Dan and that’s why I’m so pissed that I can’t find this column online when I literally saw it there three months ago damn you Sun Sentinel um Dan didn’t like the pick and and because he said they had Eddie Jones and and that’s why as we pivot ahead to this draft you do not pass on a premium Talent OR generational talent because he plays the same position as a guy you have you figure it out and they figured it out they played Dwayne at point for the first year moved Eddie uh kept Eddie at the two and then moved Eddie to the three the next year and and that’s the that was the direction that they went so a lot of moments there I mean this is one of the easier ones for us to encapsulate the franchise would be entirely different I mean there’s just no if they take Kurt Hinrich there like Shaq’s never there there’s no championship in 2006 uh not like none of that happens right Braun’s never here like none of it like I mean Kirk Hinrich no Jimmy Scrappy right no Jimmy Kirk hrich Scrappy player well maybe Jimmy would have been here because well no he wouldn’t because Kirk H would have been there Dwayne would have been in Chicago maybe it wouldn’t have been good it would have been good I mean I who knows but this is just one of those like we’re gonna get and these other draft episodes are gonna be like all right well maybe they could have looked at this guy could have looked at that guy there was no room for regret here other than they needed more sides well and they didn’t hit on their second round pick Jerome Beasley don’t forget no they did not or nor did they hit on their their 2008 pick Michael Beasley which is going to be another episode that we get to one more thing quick yes go ahead sorry about that um I just wanted to say like you know just hearing you talk about it like it really is telling you know those circumstances with that draft because it’s kind of informed the way that they’ve handled the draft ever since as far as like taking the best player available over positional fit um another thing like you talked about Dwayne playing point guard even though they knew he was a two guard and even though Eddie Jones was there in that spot already as a you know kind of a solidified player the that’s something that they’ve kind of done with their other draft picks where it’s like they kind of put them in you know take them out of their comfort zone you know for guys that are higher up you know like foundational pieces and be like okay we’re gonna try to get you to learn some of these skills you might not be a lead at them but you’re going to learn them get these while playing these refs kind of out of position or if it’s in a kind of a different role maybe more handling than you expected to and I think like they’ve done that obviously to lesser extents but throughout the years with I don’t know like Tyler Josh um not really bam because he was just kind of a he was he was pigeon hold into that backup five role but as bam you know became a starter they’ve constantly added more and more to his plate so even there like you could find plenty of examples throughout the years Justice right when he was you know they finally gave him like point guard duties that that you know a lot of those same kind of um you know that line of thinking has been applied right and you’re seeing it now with yich and hakas to different extents the other thing is like you at the top that they should have lost that game no they shouldn’t have and I think that’s really informed what they’ve done since maybe to a fa some might argue I don’t really feel that way yeah but I I you know it’s I guess whether you’re not like you take the or basketball idea seriously because it’s like they they didn’t lose that game they they play a win and then they end up with a better player anyway the guy that they should have you know quote unquote lost the game for ends up they got Chris anyway anyway and they got Leon too they got LeBron too so there the number one pick that’s there’s no way that hasn’t like influenced some of their decisions ever since as far as like whether or not like you lose the last game of the season for better draft position no it’s fair we I mean they talk about the karma of the game a lot uh they did end up with with three uh there’s a great trivia question too look it up sometime because we talk about the 2003 draft we’re not going to get as much of the 1992 draft because actually uh the heat picked a player but it’s not the one that everybody remembers playing for the heat but the heat had basically like the like the whole top 10 ended up playing for the heat at one point or another like leer uh you know obviously Shaq plus and zo uh guys that they did not draft they all ended up playing even I think Tod day even Al I don’t actually played a game for Miami because Pat told him to go home but but yeah so but this particular draft uh they end up with one uh four and five uh playing together uh although those are not the numbers that they wore with the heat of course they wore uh 1 three and six in in uh uh differently but um again the 2003 draft is the draft that made this franchise what it became honestly um and uh and and there’s just there’s you know it’s just one of those things sometimes you just pull the right lever I mean that that’s it and then you know you have to develop the player which they did uh I think Alex you got into that a little bit about him developing more as a point guard and all the rest and then uh and then you have to capitalize and I think that’s where some current Heat fans are frustrated uh but they forget that in 2008 2009 which was arguably the best of Dwayne uh the heat didn’t really supplement they they waited uh to 2010 are they waiting to supplement Jimmy Butler we’ll see what happens with that all right thanks to Greg thanks to Alex Alex 2008 you’re going to enjoy that one have a good one everybody but

In the first of a series on Five on the Floor and the Five Reasons Playback room (www.playback.tv/5RSN), Ethan Skolnick, Greg Sylvander and Alex Toledo look back at the lead-up to and selection of Marquette’s Dwyane Wade, and how it changed the franchise.

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