Justise Winslow didn’t work out for the Miami HEAT. He hadn’t even spoken to Pat Riley until the night of the draft. And the HEAT certainly didn’t expect Winslow to be available with the No. 10 pick, not when Winslow was projected by everyone with an Internet connection to be well off the board by then. Not with the sport well into it’s own Age of Analytics and Winslow slotted in the Top-5 according to a consensus of statistical models.

But someone always slides. And more often than not, that slide works out for everyone involved.

“It reminds me a lot of what happened with Caron Butler,” Pat Riley said. “Obviously, it was somewhat of a surprise, but there were a couple of players that were picked the first six or seven players, maybe there was a surprise with one of them.

“It’s a very positive pick for us. Justise is an incredible, very mature, young (at 19) player. I think anybody who has watched him play can see that he is not only athletic; he is a playmaker and a multi-position player.”

What’s most surprising about the HEAT lucking into Winslow – let’s face it, with as little control as teams have in the draft, this was a blessing from Lady Fortune – isn’t just that he was a highly-rated player, but he’s the type of player who seems to fit perfectly into the modern NBA.

‘It’s a copycat league,’ might be one of the most overused phrases of the offseason, but it’s used for a reason. Whether or not the majority of franchises actually think this way, each season’s championship team tends to wind up as a referendum on the State of the League. If you win, you’re doing something right, and when you’re the last winner standing, you start a trend, or at least the perception of one. Win with size, then teams start chasing giants. Win with shooting and teams begin seeking snipers. It can all feel a little knee-jerky at times, but the league works in cycles.

With the Golden State Warriors winning it all this year, the thinking was that everyone would start chasing speed and shooting. Based on how the draft played out, with guard D’Angelo Russell selected over center Jahlil Okafor, that might have happened.

Look closer at the Warriors, though, and despite all the things that turned them into literal fire and brimstone, they still did two things consistent with most champions from the last decade. They were versatile on offense, and they defended.

“[Justise] can guard all four positions,” Riley said.” You saw something in the Finals this year that was a little different when you had a 6’7” forward [Draymond Green] playing center with four very versatile perimeter players around him.

“Justise is similar to Draymond Green in that way.”

Sure, Golden State took their versatility to an extreme with Green at center in the last three games of the Finals, but they, like so many previous champions, had the players that allowed them to make such drastic adjustments.

Green. Andre Iguodala. Boris Diaw. Kawhi Leonard. LeBron James. Shane Battier. Shawn Marion. Ron Artest. Lamar Odom. Kevin Garnett. James Posey. Every champion of the last eight years – what one could argue as the modern era – has had at least one player who could defend multiple positions, spread the floor and keep the ball moving. Some were All-Stars, some were role players, but they all contributed to winning by unlocking a variety of lineups. Not necessarily small lineups, as the Warriors used, but versatile groupings.

Winslow can be that type of player. He’s smaller than most of the guys on that list, so he might not be slotted in an center any time soon, but the versatility is there to give Miami the best kinds of questions to answer.

So what, specifically, can he do? After all that talk about versatility, it shouldn’t surprise you to hear that Winslow can do a little bit of everything.

“Going into the league, I want to do it all,” Winslow said. “I want to find different ways to score. Whether it’s the deep ball, mid-range game or finishing through contact at the rim. It’s about trying to be the best player I can be, and my vision for that is being a well-rounded guy that can do everything.”

Pace is going to be a significant talking point once we get to training camp this Fall, with Erik Spoelstra on the record saying he wants to up the tempo across the board, and Winslow should be able to help immediately in that area. Not only can he run the floor and finish at the rim, but he can grab a rebound and take the ball coast-to-coast before either scoring or finding a teammate. If the running lane isn’t there, he can still kickstart the break with a long outlet pass. Add a solid euro-step to his game in the paint, and the open floor could become his playground.

That aggressiveness carries over into the half-court, where Winslow has a nose for gaps in the defense he can use to power his way to the rim. Get a switch on a pick-and-roll? Winslow can post-up smaller players and seal them off for a close catch. Put him on the perimeter and he’ll either rack up hockey assists swinging the ball to open shooters, or Miami’s posters, cutters and divers will enjoy his entry passing just as Okafor did at Duke.

He’s not going to run a pick-and-roll quite like a point guard, but given the promise he showed as a passer in the middle of the floor when Duke faced zone defense, there’s a chance for Winslow to become a strong option as a screen-setter. Remember Stephen Curry getting trapped on screens and finding Green in the upper paint for a 4-on-3 possession in just about every game of the Finals? That could be Winslow.

Oh, and he can shoot, too. He might not be the 41.4 percent three-point shooter he was last season – it was a small sample size, he didn’t shoot very well from the free-throw line and he was drastically better on the left side of the floor compared to the right – but there’s no reason to think Winslow can’t be a respectable spot-up shooter, particularly from the corners that Spoelstra’s offense values so heavily.

Winslow does need to work on, apart from the aforementioned free-throws, his shooting off the dribble. In college, you can still force your way to the rim even if your mid-range shot isn’t threatening, but professional defenses could sag off Winslow when he puts the ball on the floor until he proves his shooting ability. He’s a good enough passer to mitigate that somewhat, but no prospect is perfect. There’s always something to improve, and given reports of Winslow’s work ethic, he’s probably trying to improve in this area already.

We can leave further micro-level discussion for another day. This is unique time in the life of any draft pick. They’re new, they’re shiny, and because nobody has even seen them play in Summer League against other potential pros, they’re mysterious. This is the time for dreamers.

And right now, if you’re dreaming of Justise Winslow being a major part of deep playoff runs and making some All-Star teams, don’t let anybody stop you. There’s no reason to dream otherwise.