The worst NBA Draft picks for every team

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23. Miami Heat: Michael Beasley

Full disclosure: I struggled with this one.

On one hand, there’s an argument that this blunder should put the Heat much, much higher on this list. After all, Beasley spent two forgettable seasons with Miami, and the most memorable thing about his first stint there (he went back three seasons later) surrounded the circumstances under which he was dealt.

Meanwhile, Russell Westbrook, taken fourth, has won an MVP and made eight All-NBA teams, and Kevin Love, taken one pick later, is no slouch.

So yeah, they messed up. There’s two reasons why I felt queasy about putting it higher:

Assuming Miami wouldn’t have felt as comfortable dumping Russ or Love as they were Beasley for the cap space needed to sign LeBron, there’s an alternate reality where James never comes because there isn’t the cap space to sign him and those championships disappear. It’s not out of the question.
No one at the time was even putting forth arguments that anyone other than O.J. Mayo should be in consideration for the second pick. He wasn’t much better than the Beas.

All things considered, this is probably where it should be.

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