NBA Trade Rumors: Heat could easily meet Blazers’ asking price for Damian Lillard

How the Miami Heat can compile four future first-round picks

The path to the Miami Heat being able to send four future first-round picks to the Portland Trail Blazers for Damian Lillard could be as simple as a three-team trade or as complicated as a five or six-team deal. Nevertheless, there are ways the Heat could accomplish this in negotiations.

One of the ways they can is by negotiation with the Oklahoma City Thunder either in a separate deal entirely or bringing them in as part of a third or fourth team in this deal. If the Thunder sends back the Heat’s 2025 first-round pick to them, perhaps in exchange for Tyler Herro or other compensation, Miami could theoretically send their 2024, 2026, 2028, and 2030 first-round picks to Portland to complete the deal.

Or if they simply moved the pick to 2026, the Heat could send 2024, 2028, and 2030 to Portland and find another future first-round pick to send to the Blazers by sending Herro and/or Caleb Martin to a third team.

As it stands, the Heat is only legally eligible to trade two first-round picks. However, they could easily figure out a way to either unlock more of their own picks or move additional players that may not initially be involved in this deal to third or fourth teams to acquire another future first-round pick or two.