The Chicago Bulls have been reportedly fielding calls over the past few days from a variety of teams inquiring about a trade for star Jimmy Butler. We’ve heard rumors that the Timberwolves are interested in Butler, as are the Cavaliers, Celtics, and possibly Suns (although most anticipate Phoenix being a third team in a trade).
The uncertainty surrounding Butler’s future with the Bulls means the entire team is in limbo waiting to find out if they will, once again, be making a push for a playoff spot in the East, or if the rebuilding process will begin in earnest in 2017-18. Whatever the decision is that the Bulls make regarding Butler, it won’t have much impact on Dwyane Wade’s impending decision.
The veteran shooting guard has a $24 million player option he has to decide on by June 27, and ESPN’s Ramona Shelburne reports that, no matter what happens with Butler, he’s likely to pick it up.
While Wade is monitoring the situation with Butler and how the Bulls approach this week’s NBA draft, sources indicated that he’s leaning toward picking up his player option regardless of what the Bulls do in the next week.
Wade doesn’t want to be part of a rebuilding situation, but he also won’t find a better payday on the open market and, as Shelburne notes, he took less for years in Miami so he’s going to get his money now, regardless of the Bulls situation. Wade taking his one-year player option also sets up for an extremely interesting dynamic in the summer of 2018.
Wade and his good buddy LeBron James will both be free agents next summer and fellow banana boat crew member Carmelo Anthony could join them as free agents if he exercised his early termination option in New York. After the Cavaliers seemed to upset LeBron James by letting GM David Griffin go without notice on Monday, the door may be slightly more ajar for a James departure than originally expected — and there were already grumblings that he might want to go to Los Angeles.
If all three of them hit the market together, there’s no telling what they might try to do together. All would likely have to take smaller contracts to play together, but they could, theoretically, create an old stars super team.
