Mailbag: Would potential Damian Lillard trade leave Heat’s roster needing more?

The Miami Herald’s Heat mailbag is here to answer your pressing offseason questions. If you weren’t able to ask this time, send your questions for future mailbags via Twitter (@Anthony_Chiang). You can also email them in to achiang@miamiherald.com.

Carlos: The likelihood that the trade will happen is high. ... The problem is who’s going to support Jimmy Butler, Bam Adebayo and Damian Lillard. The Heat has lost two starters in Gabe Vincent and Max Strus, and is going to lose Kyle Lowry and Duncan Robinson to offset Lillard’s $45 million salary. Either Tyler Herro and/or Caleb Martin will go out as well, plus a couple of first-round picks. So who will be the supporting cast? Josh Richardson and Thomas Bryant are players to fill the bench, Jaime Jaquez Jr. and Nikola Jovic are young. So the only players left are Jamal Cain, Haywood Highsmith and Orlando Robinson, and neither is a starter with experience. Again, who will play with Butler, Bam and Lillard? Can you elaborate?

Anthony Chiang: That’s a tough question to answer at the moment because we still don’t know who the Heat will send out in a potential trade for Damian Lillard. But it’s hard to envision the Heat needing to deal away so much that it negates the value of acquiring Lillard, considering Bam Adebayo and Jimmy Butler will not be included in Miami’s trade package.

To answer your question, though, even if the Heat’s hypothetical trade package includes Tyler Herro, Duncan Robinson, Nikola Jovic and a few first-round picks, that still leaves a roster that includes Caleb Martin, Kyle Lowry, Jaime Jaquez Jr., Kevin Love, Josh Richardson, Thomas Bryant, Haywood Highsmith and Orlando Robinson surrounding the trio of Adebayo, Butler and Lillard.

The Heat will also very likely have a few roster spots to fill after a potential trade for Lillard. Available free agents like Christian Wood, Kelly Oubre Jr., Kendrick Nunn, Terrence Ross and even Goran Dragic could help solidify the Heat’s depth after this type of deal.

So yes, the Heat will need to give up at least a couple rotation players to acquire Lillard. But that’s the price of landing a future Hall of Famer who is still playing at an All-Star level.

@BjornHansenMMA: Any clarification on what the “second apron” means for the NBA and the Heat going forward, would be much appreciated. How much wiggle room do the Heat and what sort of magic would they need to make happen to create more room?

Anthony: A Lillard trade would change the math, but here’s where the Heat stands right now.

Not including cap holds, the Heat has about $179.3 million committed to salaries for 13 players.

With the 2023-24 salary cap set at $136 million, the luxury tax at $165.2 million, the first tax apron at $172.3 million and the second tax apron at $182.7 million, the Heat is well above the luxury-tax threshold and is close to crossing the newly instituted and punitive second apron with roster spots still to fill for next season.

This upcoming season, teams above the second apron won’t have access to the taxpayer mid-level exception and teams above either apron will be prevented from signing a player waived during the regular season if that player’s pre-waiver salary is larger than the non-taxpayer midlevel exception of about $10.5 million.

Among the other punitive measures established by the new CBA, the salary-matching component of completing a trade will become a lot more challenging for high-spending teams.

Luxury tax teams could take back salaries of as much as 125 percent of what they traded out under the old CBA. But the new CBA reduced that number to 110 percent for this NBA calendar year that began on July 1 and becomes even more restrictive next offseason when, starting July 1, 2024, luxury tax teams can’t take back more salary in a trade than they send out and teams above the second apron can’t aggregate salaries in a trade.

Also starting in the 2024-25 season, teams that finish the regular season over the second apron will no longer be able to trade their draft pick seven years out. Once a team closes a season above the second apron and has its future pick frozen, if it goes over the second apron twice in the following four seasons, that pick would then be moved to the bottom of the first round regardless of where a team finishes in the standings.

In other words, the Heat and teams around the league will be working to avoid this second apron and not just because of the expensive tax bill. All these rules make it unsustainable to consistently operate in this space.

@kql5398: Any updates on “Dame D.O.L.L.A.”?

Anthony: Do you mean the rapper? Considering that key decision-makers from both teams were on vacation or were about to go on vacation, as of last week, a Lillard trade does not appear to be imminent.

The main thing to know is that Lillard’s stance has not changed. He wants to be traded to the Heat and nowhere else. Now, we continue to wait with training camps around the NBA opening in just over two months.