Trade & FA 2024-25:

[Knutsen]

Picks and what value they carry is always fluid, with the biggest issue being that different picks carry more perceived value for one team than another. Teams want 1sts in a trade, but they may be way better on paper than in reality, and each has different ways of how they assess reality.

Take OKC for example. It's an interesting exercise to look at their list of future picks,and compare them to the team they come from and how that's team's future appears. When you do, there's a very reasonable chance that among all of that number, they won't get a single top 10 pick, with the vast majority being in the 20s. Quantity? Yes. Quality? Not so much.

In this situation, it's likely that MIA (or someone else) is looking for 2025-26-27 picks, not one all the way out in 2031 whose value might be great but then again might not be turn out to be as good as you had planned for (because teams who don't have their own pick don't tank at all, no matter what). If they need help NOW, a 2031 pick doesn't give them what they need. Multiple picks like 2025 and 2027 have way more value in that case.

I completely agree. Then there’s teams who have a knack for drafting a special kind of players that completely fit in their team, culture and system perfectly but wouldn’t perform that way in most other places and therefore aren’t high on the draft boards. 

For those teams a pick in the twenties can almost have the same subjective value than a top 10 pick - and Miami ist definitely one of those teams, along with Memphis for example.