The day [autotag]Jared McCain[/autotag] has waited for all summer is finally here.
Months after his final game in a Duke uniform (appropriately, a 32-point game in the NCAA Tournament to cap off a star-making run), McCain will get drafted by an NBA team during Wednesday night’s first round. But where will he go?
Here at Duke Wire, we’ve laid out McCain’s five ideal destinations here and his five most likely landing spots here. Multiple mock drafts from multiple different outlets paired him with the Philadelphia 76ers, reports confirmed that he worked out with the Milwaukee Bucks, and fans clamored for him to get taken in the lottery after a steller 3-point shooting performance at the combine.
With the draft just hours away, however. we’re ready to lock in our final guess for the 41.4% 3-point shooter. By the end of Wednesday night, McCain will be a member of…
…the Miami Heat.
McCain’s draft odds, according to the DraftKings Sportsbook on Wednesday afternoon, tie him to multiple teams in the mid-to-late teens in the draft order, which reflects that analysts and scouts haven’t heard smoke tying him to any one team. The Heat, who own the 15th overall pick, sit as one of the earliest of those teams on the draft board, however, and Miami desperately needs offense, specifically on the perimeter.
One year removed from winning the Eastern Conference for the second time in four years, the Heat finished with the fifth-worst scoring offense in the NBA. Jimmy Butler will turn 35 years old in September, and the Heat need to take advantage of their window while its open. McCain not only changes the offensive math, he also lets Miami shop players like Tyler Herro in trade packages later this summer without surrendering their scoring.
The first round of the NBA draft gets underway at 8 p.m. Eastern time on Wednesday night and Duke fans can watch McCain and Filipowski’s lives change on ABC and ESPN.