"It was a year after Pat Riley had arrived. Chris Wallace, the Heat's personnel guru, was convinced he had unearthed buried treasure in Estonia.

So, based on the shortest of highlight reels, something that resembled the Zapruder film, Martin Muursepp was acquired in the first round of the 1996 NBA Draft.

Well, that, uh, didn't work out very well.

Since then, the names the Heat have drafted have been more along the lines of Smith, Brown, Johnson, Butler.

Nope, not a lot of foreign intrigue.

But Chet Kammerer, the team's vice president of player personnel, insists it is not a case of taking a provincial approach.

"I think Pat's preference is an American player," he said, looking ahead to Thursday's NBA Draft. "But I also don't think it's not part of the equation.

"I think this draft, like the last few, 20 percent of the draft will be international players. I think there will be four or five players taken in the lottery, international players. There are some potential guys we could take at 31 that would be stashed in international basketball."