Ira Winderman: Potential NBA expansion should have Heat's attention

MIAMI — The long game rarely has been the game of preference for the live-in-the-moment Miami Heat, save, perhaps, for when Pat Riley and Andy Elisburg amassed in advance every possible cent of salary-cap space ahead of the 2010 free-agency haul of LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh.

In that regard, news this past week of a seemingly inevitable NBA expansion — most likely to Seattle and Las Vegas in 2028-29 — hardly impacts the thinking at the moment of yet another at-all-costs Heat scramble for the playoffs.

But in a salary-cap, luxury-tax, lottery league, potential expansion does matter, because the success of many who have bypassed the Heat in the playoff race has been predicated on advance planning, living for the future instead of Heat-like living largely in the moment.

So, yes, what is expected to happen in 2028-29, pending Board of Governors approval, will very much resonate at 601 Biscayne.

And that could, by the end of this month, require Riley, Elisburg, draft guru Adam Simon and the ownership wing of Micky Arison and Nick Arison to take the long view.

Among the reasons expansion has remained on hold since 2004, when the Charlotte Bobcats, now the Hornets, entered the league, is the complexities at play.

For the Heat, such factors include …

— Expansion draft: The expected model for an expansion draft is that teams would be allowed to protect eight players, with such a list not allowed to include impending unrestricted free agents. Regardless, a team must make available for the expansion draft at least one player under contract, eligible to lose no more than one player in the expansion draft.

At the moment, it is far too early to forecast such a Heat approach for the 2028 offseason, considering only Bam Adebayo, Nikola Jovic and Kasparas Jakucionis (team option) are under Heat contract for that offseason.

For purposes of such an exercise, if the expansion draft were this offseason, a possible eight-pack of Heat players protected would be Adebayo, Tyler Herro, Kel’el Ware, Jakucionis, Jaime Jaquez Jr., Pelle Larsson, Davion Mitchell and Dru Smith. (By protecting Smith, it would put Jovic, and his now questionable extension, into the expansion pool.) Because they are or could become impending free agents, Norman Powell, Andrew Wiggins, Simone Fontecchio and Keshad Johnson would not need to be protected or exposed.

—NBA draft: This is another curious aspect for the Heat, because if the first-round pick due the Hornets from the Terry Rozier trade goes to Charlotte in the 2027 draft (it is lottery protected that year), it would mean that Heat would own their 2028 first-rounder.

Therefore, having a pair of expansion teams enter the draft calculus in 2028 could push the Heat pick further back, if they wind up retaining their 2028 first-rounder.

In 1988, when the Heat and Hornets entered the league, they were slotted in behind the lottery teams, with a coin flip for the Nos. 8-9 slots. The Hornets won that draw, selecting Rex Chapman at No. 8, with the Heat taking Rony Seikaly at No. 9.

In the 1995 expansion involving the Raptors and Grizzlies, those two teams were slotted into the middle of the lottery, at Nos. 6-7, pushing back teams that had qualified for that 1995 random-but-weighted drawing. The Grizzlies selected Bryant Reeves and No. 6, the Raptors Damon Stoudamire at No. 7.

In the most recent draft involving an expansion team, the Bobcats were slotted into the 2004 draft at No. 4, again in the midst of the lottery, trading up to select Emeka Okafor at No. 2.

— Realignment: With the expectations of two western franchises being added (Seattle, Las Vegas), it would require one current West team to move east to balance out a 16-16 split between conferences.

From a Heat perspective, logic would have the Memphis Grizzlies move East, which would create a Southeast Division of Southeast teams Miami, Orlando, Atlanta, Charlotte and Memphis (with an accompanying move of Washington joining fellow northeast teams Philadelphia, New York, Brooklyn, Boston and Toronto in the Atlantic Division).

However, based on their geographic (and time-zone) differences from current fellow Western Conference rivals, the Minnesota Timberwolves for years have lobbied to move East, to most geographically align with Central Divisions teams such as Chicago and Milwaukee.

In regard to the long view of the playoff race, that dichotomy of options could mean the Heat competing with a likely still-rebuilding Grizzlies roster, or potentially contending with Timberwolves guard Anthony Edwards, who will be 27 at the time of potential 2028-29 expansion.

Also by adding two expansion teams to the Western Conference and moving an existing contender East, it could get the league to the type of greater competitive balance sought for years amid West dominance.

— Memory lane: Among the players the Heat emerged with from the 1988 expansion draft were Billy Thompson, Scott Hastings, Jon Sundvold and Dwayne “Pearl” Washington.

There also was plenty of wheeling and dealing at that expansion draft, including securing the No. 20 pick in that year’s college draft (Kevin Edwards) for bypassing several exposed Dallas Mavericks (Bill Wennington and Uwe Blab, Steve Alford), a Lakers 1992 second-round pick (Matt Geiger) for bypassing Kareem Abdul-Jabbar at the end of his career and a 1988 Seattle second-round pick (Orlando Graham) for not selecting Dennis Johnson from the Sonics.

The Heat’s picks in their inaugural college draft in 1988 were Seikaly (No. 9), Edwards (No. 20), Grant Long (No. 33), Sylvester Gray (No. 35), Graham (No. 40) and Nate Johnston (No. 59, in the final year of the three-round draft).

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