A new twist occurred in the Jimmy Butler trade saga on Wednesday morning, when it was reported that the All-Star and his agent told the Minnesota Timberwolves that he would like to get traded to Miami. This, obviously, led to basketball fans wondering exactly what Pat Riley would need to do to pull this trade off and get a star to come down to South Beach.
Is there a way for the Heat to pull this off without having to get anyone else involved, or could this be a trade where a whole bunch of teams and a whole bunch of players move? We decided to consult the all-knowing Trade Machine to try and figure things out. The one rule is that every deal has to involve Butler ending up in Miami, but beyond that, we’re free to tinker with these trades however we want.
First up, we wanted to look at a handful of trades that involve the Heat and Wolves handling their business without anyone else involved.
This is probably the simplest trade to imagine, a straight-up deal where Minnesota turns Butler into a good player in Dragic and a young guy in Winslow, you can maybe even toss a pick in if you feel so inclined, although Miami’s in future pick hell right now. In all of these deals, you can replace Winslow with Bam Adebayo pretty easily, although it is much easier to imagine that the Heat would want to hold onto the big man, who is not on an expiring deal (Winslow is) and wouldn’t see a dip in playing time if he was teammates with Butler (Winslow would). Of course, the Timberwolves might demand Adebayo, in which case, who knows?
This deal is also fairly easy to imagine because Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN floated the idea of Dragic getting moved to facilitate another deal that sends Jeff Teague to Phoenix, but we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it. First, let’s recall earlier this week, when it was reported that Minnesota could look to get off of Gorgui Dieng’s contracts and go here…
Both Johnson and Whiteside possess slightly more palatable deals than Dieng in that they’re both only one year shorter. Also, for the sake of transparency, the deal on top can work without Adebayo/Winslow, while the deal on the bottom can work with them.
The deal on top probably makes more sense for a few reasons, namely that Johnson and Richardson gives Minnesota more depth on the wing, which is even more so the case if Winslow is added in. If it’s Adebayo, that accomplishes two things: 1. It gives Minnesota an exciting 1-2 punch in Adebayo and Karl-Anthony Towns, 2. It frees up a bit of a logjam that would occur if Dieng got moved in this deal, as Miami would have a tooooooon of big men should they acquire Dieng. It’s why a Whiteside trade works in theory, but I cannot for the life of me imagine the Wolves wanting him when they have Towns.
These trades get a little more interesting, though, when you consider that other teams want to get involved. For example, there’s a rumbling that Phoenix wants to try and hop in to find a solution to its dearth of point guards, while Sacramento — which doesn’t have a first-round pick in 2019 — would like to help facilitate a deal thanks to its $11 million in cap space.
Before we get into a wild, four-team scenario, let’s look at each team on their own and see what we can figure out.
This one is simple, but I have some questions about it. Would the Suns give up Bridges after trading up to get him on draft night? (My guess: No.) Would Miami be happy going into the season with a not especially great point guard depth chart? (Once more, my guess: No.) Would more players have to be on the move? If so, how about this?
Miami gets Butler and a solid point guard in Jones, Minnesota gets an established point guard and some young dudes, Phoenix gets a guard, a young player with upside (if he can stay healthy), and perhaps a pick from the Heat or Wolves. Onto the Kings, which is where these deals start to get really weird.
This might be my favorite deal of them all. Miami gets Butler and Cauley-Stein, who wants to get paid but might not get that in Sacramento, along with some cap relief in the form of getting rid of Johnson’s deal. The Timberwolves get a pair of veterans who can help right away and someone in Richardson who is 25 and good, but still has room to improve. To boot, he has a team-friendly deal as well. Sacramento takes on Dieng’s contract, and for their troubles, they also snag a first-round pick from Minnesota, one which is lottery protected this year, top-5 protected in 2020, and unprotected in 2021.
Anyway, y’all wanna see if we can cook up a four-teamer? Let’s see…
It’s relatively simple and doesn’t require a ton of moving parts. Miami gets Butler and a veteran big to help mentor Adebayo, Minnesota gets Dragic and a former college teammate of Towns on the last year of his deal, Phoenix gets a point guard, Sacramento gets a passable big man in Olynyk and the first-round pick from the Wolves in the scenario above.
Who knows what will actually end up happening, because this is the NBA, and trades never end up being exactly how they’re envisioned by idiots who do not make decisions and toy around with the trade machine for their amusement like myself. There’s also nothing to indicate that, you know, the Timberwolves are certainly sending Butler to South Beach, because all they have to do is get the best possible return back for him, and there’s no guarantee that comes from Miami. That sort of inability to predict things is what makes the NBA fun, but it also makes trying to figure out where the hell Jimmy Butler is going to play basketball this season really, really tough.
