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the Jimmy Butler Trade in Hindsight

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Re: the Jimmy Butler Trade in Hindsight 

Post#161 » by kodo » Tue May 17, 2022 12:48 am

ATRAIN53 wrote:GarPax didn't believe in Butler and it eventually cost them their job.

'
Foreman yes, but Paxson is still here as Michael's direct advisor and Michael Reinsdorf ultimately makes his decision based on Paxson. Michael said the entire idea of cleaning house, firing Foreman, and hiring an expensive FO (AK, ME, Billy) was Paxson's advice. Considering how massive of a direction change and expenditure this all was, it's obvious Paxson's word has major weight for the Bulls to follow through on what Paxson wanted to do.

As Michael Reinsdorf confirmed upon news of Gar Forman’s firing and Paxson’s reassignment to a senior advisor position, he made it known that it was indeed Paxson who kickstarted this movement:

“John has an invaluable perspective on our organization and where we want to be, and he played an instrumental role in this change by bringing forward the idea of a restructure and reorganization,” said Reinsdorf in a statement. “His decision to take on a new role reflects what I’ve always known about John – that he is forever a willing teammate on and off of the court and always does what he believes is in the best interest of the Chicago Bulls.”
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Re: the Jimmy Butler Trade in Hindsight 

Post#162 » by SfBull » Tue May 17, 2022 3:14 pm

dice wrote:
Mbrahv0528 wrote:
SfBull wrote:Not a good job from AK so far.
That is objectively false

single season significant win improvement based on greatly increased spending combined with mortgaging the future does not provide much of an objective answer

Single season win improvement in regular season annulated by a very bad playoff series against the Bucks and that very trade who got us Vuc.
I keep thinking AK was a good choice over Pax but believe he has a lot of work for really improving the Bulls
especially bringing better bench role players. I'm not talking about firing him with just one season but he should be worried if telling the truth about building around a core of bad defenders only working on the margins for improvement.So if comes a thread about how Posters evaluate AK's work so far I 'd be with the guys no so really happy with him.
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Re: the Jimmy Butler Trade in Hindsight 

Post#163 » by SfBull » Tue May 17, 2022 3:19 pm

kodo wrote:
ATRAIN53 wrote:GarPax didn't believe in Butler and it eventually cost them their job.

'
Foreman yes, but Paxson is still here as Michael's direct advisor and Michael Reinsdorf ultimately makes his decision based on Paxson. Michael said the entire idea of cleaning house, firing Foreman, and hiring an expensive FO (AK, ME, Billy) was Paxson's advice. Considering how massive of a direction change and expenditure this all was, it's obvious Paxson's word has major weight for the Bulls to follow through on what Paxson wanted to do.

As Michael Reinsdorf confirmed upon news of Gar Forman’s firing and Paxson’s reassignment to a senior advisor position, he made it known that it was indeed Paxson who kickstarted this movement:

“John has an invaluable perspective on our organization and where we want to be, and he played an instrumental role in this change by bringing forward the idea of a restructure and reorganization,” said Reinsdorf in a statement. “His decision to take on a new role reflects what I’ve always known about John – that he is forever a willing teammate on and off of the court and always does what he believes is in the best interest of the Chicago Bulls.”

But AK needs to show better results next seasons including better playoff performances,another 1st round exit the way it was against the Bucks will turn more people less optimistic about his job.Perhaps we'll see more cleaning house advices by Pax then.
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Re: the Jimmy Butler Trade in Hindsight 

Post#164 » by ATRAIN53 » Wed May 18, 2022 3:30 pm

still a long series to go, but I have no problem if this post season turns into the Jimmy Butler is a star coronation.
BOS will adjust, but so will Jimmy and so will SPO. This is a great series just getting started....

Watching Jimmy mentor UNDRAFTED guys like Strus and Gabe Vincent and turning them into guys starting Eastern Conf Finals games is awesome. 2 guys in the MIA starting lineup are undrafted 2 way G-Leaugers. If thoise guys play that good in BOS they can win this series.

We lost that trade and now were gonna be paying Lavine way more than we ever would have paid Jimmy..... :banghead:


Spolestra is not retiring anytime soon.
Maybe we can steal Haslem to be our HC
or pilfer Allen or Butler from that staff. We need some Bulls culture here.
Someone to develop our Javonte Green into Vincent or Matt Thomas into Strus.

DeRozan did a great job mentoring Ayo, if only DeRo was a lock down type defender.....
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Re: the Jimmy Butler Trade in Hindsight 

Post#165 » by meekrab » Wed May 18, 2022 4:36 pm

dukeespn wrote:
SfBull wrote:
MrSparkle wrote:
Didn’t like paying high on ACL Zach and rookie-dud Dunn, and giving up #16. I also didn’t like taking Lopez’s salary in the *expiring* Rose deal. Lopez was just good enough to make us win games we should’ve lost, and just bad enough to not help us win games we should’ve won.

Anyway, GarPaxDorf didn’t have the vision to build over the cap. They wanted to save bucks and squeeze a first round appearance with no end game. Triple dummies.

I had no problem with the wade/rondo signings. If you had 5 other good players and a quality coach, we’d been perfectly fine. They wanted to hold onto projects.

You can't build a winning roster with a weak FO running the franchise.


Yeah and it's because weak FOs select weak players as their leader.

You must not build around players who can't contribute on both ends of the floor. It's hilarious to see Grayson **** Allen play like an all-star in the playoffs. That's what happens when your two best players are really bad defenders. Allen tore down pathetic defense from DDR and Zach.

Allen really struggled against the Celtics while he played like an all-star against the Bulls.

against the Celtics : total 35 points with 13/42 FG

against the Bulls : total 65 points with 24/40 FG

I watched a couple Bucks-Celtics games and what I saw was Grayson Allen airballing open 3s, not some amazing Celtic defense smothering him. He was hot against us and not against Boston, that's all.
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Re: the Jimmy Butler Trade in Hindsight 

Post#166 » by MalagaBulls » Wed May 18, 2022 5:22 pm

I am not a Heat fan at all but it would be cool for Jimmy Buckets to earn his ring.
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Re: the Jimmy Butler Trade in Hindsight 

Post#167 » by SfBull » Wed May 18, 2022 11:41 pm

meekrab wrote:
dukeespn wrote:
SfBull wrote:You can't build a winning roster with a weak FO running the franchise.


Yeah and it's because weak FOs select weak players as their leader.

You must not build around players who can't contribute on both ends of the floor. It's hilarious to see Grayson **** Allen play like an all-star in the playoffs. That's what happens when your two best players are really bad defenders. Allen tore down pathetic defense from DDR and Zach.

Allen really struggled against the Celtics while he played like an all-star against the Bulls.

against the Celtics : total 35 points with 13/42 FG

against the Bulls : total 65 points with 24/40 FG

I watched a couple Bucks-Celtics games and what I saw was Grayson Allen airballing open 3s, not some amazing Celtic defense smothering him. He was hot against us and not against Boston, that's all.

No, that's not the answer,Allen made some 3s against the Celtics but missed most just because there was some player with a hand over his face .He just faced the worst playoff defense in the Bulls.Any other good perimeter shooter would do well too.
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Re: the Jimmy Butler Trade in Hindsight 

Post#168 » by coldfish » Thu May 19, 2022 12:15 am

IMO, in hindsight the Butler trade was horrific. I supported trading him at the time but now with the data in, it was a huge mistake. Butler should have been kept and everyone else dumped.
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Re: the Jimmy Butler Trade in Hindsight 

Post#169 » by PaKii94 » Thu May 19, 2022 6:14 am

Spoelstra: a lot of guys in this league are playing basketball, Jimmy is competing to win, that’s a totally different thing.


https://www.reddit.com/r/nba/comments/usjai0/erik_spoelstra_a_lot_of_guys_in_this_league_are/
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Re: the Jimmy Butler Trade in Hindsight 

Post#170 » by Dan Z » Thu May 19, 2022 6:28 am

PaKii94 wrote:
Spoelstra: a lot of guys in this league are playing basketball, Jimmy is competing to win, that’s a totally different thing.


https://www.reddit.com/r/nba/comments/usjai0/erik_spoelstra_a_lot_of_guys_in_this_league_are/


I think the argument Butler and Spoelstra had during the season was overblown. They got into it, but worked it out and moved on.

Is Spoelstra the best coach in the league? I'd put him up there. Of course Pop is all-time great, but he's at the end of his career.
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Re: the Jimmy Butler Trade in Hindsight 

Post#171 » by Dan Z » Thu May 19, 2022 6:53 am

coldfish wrote:IMO, in hindsight the Butler trade was horrific. I supported trading him at the time but now with the data in, it was a huge mistake. Butler should have been kept and everyone else dumped.


When the trade happened one reason why I thought they did it is because the team didn't have any young players with the potential to grow with Butler. The McDermott trade messed that up. Sure, Mirotic was good, but streaky and Bobby had potential (probably not enough for what I'm talking about).

However it seems like they didn't realize that you could build with Butler using mid to late picks. Miami has proved that with undrafted players who are contributing. They even drafted Bam at 14 (which isn't that late, but also not high either).

When you look around the league teams have found contributors late in the draft: Maxey at 21, Bane at 30, Robert Williams at 27, in the 2nd round there's Dillan Brooks, Ayo, Jalen Brunson, etc. One player that's been talked a lot about here, Rudy Gobert, was drafted #27 and then traded for #46 plus cash! Then you have the super rare draft of Jokic, but that's one in a million.

Anyway, I'm sure you know all this...it came to mind when I read your post. Basically I just mean that a creative front office would've kept Butler and figured out how to build with him.
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Re: the Jimmy Butler Trade in Hindsight 

Post#172 » by fleet » Thu May 19, 2022 9:44 am

coldfish wrote:IMO, in hindsight the Butler trade was horrific. I supported trading him at the time but now with the data in, it was a huge mistake. Butler should have been kept and everyone else dumped.

Including the first rounder was ridiculous

My thoughts were that if that FO couldn’t figure how to build that team up around him, may as well trade him and get a haul. They didn’t get that haul. Their failures were multiple. Going into the trade, and finishing it.
Brad Biggs wrote:Fields was in the bottom third of the league in too many key statistical metrics for the Bears to commit to the idea of trading down from the first pick for a bundle of future assets and then building around him.
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Re: the Jimmy Butler Trade in Hindsight 

Post#173 » by coldfish » Thu May 19, 2022 10:38 am

fleet wrote:
coldfish wrote:IMO, in hindsight the Butler trade was horrific. I supported trading him at the time but now with the data in, it was a huge mistake. Butler should have been kept and everyone else dumped.

Including the first rounder was ridiculous

My thoughts were that if that FO couldn’t figure how to build that team up around him, may as well trade him and get a haul. They didn’t get that haul. Their failures were multiple. Going into the trade, and finishing it.


Yeah, I was fine with trading him but when I saw what the Bulls got I was against it at the time. With the benefit of hindsight, it was an absolutely terrible superstar trade. It should not be forgotten that Lavine was coming off an ACL.

I still think Butler's issues with Hoiberg were a big part of that and in hindsight, Butler was right about Hoiberg.

Also with hindsight, the damage Gar Forman did to the Bulls was epic. Chicago is still trying to dig out from his incompetence.
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Re: the Jimmy Butler Trade in Hindsight 

Post#174 » by fleet » Thu May 19, 2022 11:58 am

^^^ Hoiberg ffs. IIRC, a large narrative among fans and media was that the team with Jimmy was destined to be mediocre, not a high ceiling. But the truth was that our minds were poisoned by an incompetent FO and coaching staff to believe it. They were the ceiling problem, and our imaginations were limited by THEM. Not Jimmy.

As a consequence, Jimmy took a lot of negativity he never deserved. Remember all that stuff? Jimmy was too uncompromising, can’t deal with mediocrity, and softness. And that was supposed to be a problem. In Chicago of all places, we should have known better.
Brad Biggs wrote:Fields was in the bottom third of the league in too many key statistical metrics for the Bears to commit to the idea of trading down from the first pick for a bundle of future assets and then building around him.
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Re: the Jimmy Butler Trade in Hindsight 

Post#175 » by erlim » Thu May 19, 2022 12:04 pm

Honestly it’s hard to fully blame GarPax for the situation. Jimmy Butler is great, better than Derozan but not by orders of magnitude, the latter showing he is a stellar and respected teammate and presence who can also go long stretches looking completely dominant. Our return wasn’t bad, recency bias has us judging an injured Lavine, and Jimmy can also be difficult and shut out his teammates as seen on the Sixers, TWolves, and even dressing by himself in Chicago and distancing himself from respected guys like Rose and Noah. It’s certainly not the franchise ending disaster some make it out to be. There are pluses and minuses.
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Re: the Jimmy Butler Trade in Hindsight 

Post#176 » by fleet » Thu May 19, 2022 12:08 pm

erlim wrote:Honestly it’s hard to fully blame GarPax for the situation. Jimmy Butler is great, better than Derozan but not by orders of magnitude, the latter showing he is a stellar and respected teammate and presence who can also go long stretches looking completely dominant. Our return wasn’t bad, recency bias has us judging an injured Lavine, and Jimmy can also be difficult and shut out his teammates as seen on the Sixers, TWolves, and even dressing by himself in Chicago and distancing himself from respected guys like Rose and Noah. It’s certainly not the franchise ending disaster some make it out to be. There are pluses and minuses.

This is the same old mistake imo. If anything should be apparent by now, the Bulls Sixers and Wolves were the problems

There’s nothing much wrong with this current DDR team either. But they did quit when they got hurt, got one dimensional and thats irrelevant to Jimmy anyway
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Re: the Jimmy Butler Trade in Hindsight 

Post#177 » by dougthonus » Thu May 19, 2022 12:18 pm

fleet wrote:
coldfish wrote:IMO, in hindsight the Butler trade was horrific. I supported trading him at the time but now with the data in, it was a huge mistake. Butler should have been kept and everyone else dumped.

Including the first rounder was ridiculous

My thoughts were that if that FO couldn’t figure how to build that team up around him, may as well trade him and get a haul. They didn’t get that haul. Their failures were multiple. Going into the trade, and finishing it.


Just some factual things to add to this for the woe as me crowd:
1: We got a two time all star that is six years younger for Jimmy and still may improve. Not sure what you think a "haul" was, but most people would be pretty content in this situation if they felt compelled to trade

2: Butler was traded in consecutive years after the Bulls trade, because he's a dick and hard to get along with.
a: Both teams who traded him had more star talent than us and better chances to win (yet he demand out of one of those places, which should lead you to question the longevity of his commitment here)
b: Both teams got a single role player back, not a star player and a role player, radically, radically less returns (ie if we waited to trade Butler, we would have gotten massively less)

3: He was going to be a free agent, and unknown whether he would have stayed here at that point, given we had little to build around him.

4: If he did stay, he'd be making another 10M per year, making it even harder to build around him

I'm not sitting here saying thank god we traded Jimmy Butler, but to be all woe as me as if we there weren't massive concerns with keeping him and as if we didn't get the best deal possible for him and a pretty good deal in terms of how these things generally work is really not painting an accurate picture of the process. We didn't trade prime Shaq here, there were a lot of questions about Butler's ability around the league at the time.
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Re: the Jimmy Butler Trade in Hindsight 

Post#178 » by coldfish » Thu May 19, 2022 1:09 pm

dougthonus wrote:
fleet wrote:
coldfish wrote:IMO, in hindsight the Butler trade was horrific. I supported trading him at the time but now with the data in, it was a huge mistake. Butler should have been kept and everyone else dumped.

Including the first rounder was ridiculous

My thoughts were that if that FO couldn’t figure how to build that team up around him, may as well trade him and get a haul. They didn’t get that haul. Their failures were multiple. Going into the trade, and finishing it.


Just some factual things to add to this for the woe as me crowd:
1: We got a two time all star that is six years younger for Jimmy and still may improve. Not sure what you think a "haul" was, but most people would be pretty content in this situation if they felt compelled to trade

2: Butler was traded in consecutive years after the Bulls trade, because he's a dick and hard to get along with.
a: Both teams who traded him had more star talent than us and better chances to win (yet he demand out of one of those places, which should lead you to question the longevity of his commitment here)
b: Both teams got a single role player back, not a star player and a role player, radically, radically less returns (ie if we waited to trade Butler, we would have gotten massively less)

3: He was going to be a free agent, and unknown whether he would have stayed here at that point, given we had little to build around him.

4: If he did stay, he'd be making another 10M per year, making it even harder to build around him

I'm not sitting here saying thank god we traded Jimmy Butler, but to be all woe as me as if we there weren't massive concerns with keeping him and as if we didn't get the best deal possible for him and a pretty good deal in terms of how these things generally work is really not painting an accurate picture of the process. We didn't trade prime Shaq here, there were a lot of questions about Butler's ability around the league at the time.


At the time, there was a pretty big debate here. It wasn't like trading him was a unanimous decision as being a good idea. Once the trade went through, the support eroded further due to the return. Its not like questioning the trade is some out of left field concept.

Now with the benefit of hindsight, it was a really terrible idea. As I noted above, I was actually for trading him before the trade but I can admit when I was wrong.

As far as what Chicago got, Lauri and Dunn were questionable on day 1. Lavine wasn't highly regarded either, particularly coming off the knee issue. Lavine turned it around but . . . now has knee issues.

Hindsight is always great but its also a trap. Anyone at any time can be second guessed using perfection as a bar. Overall though the Butler trade was just one in a long series of mistakes by GarPax during the 2012-2020 period which put the team in a really bad place.
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Re: the Jimmy Butler Trade in Hindsight 

Post#179 » by dougthonus » Thu May 19, 2022 1:29 pm

coldfish wrote:At the time, there was a pretty big debate here. It wasn't like trading him was a unanimous decision as being a good idea. Once the trade went through, the support eroded further due to the return. Its not like questioning the trade is some out of left field concept.

Now with the benefit of hindsight, it was a really terrible idea. As I noted above, I was actually for trading him before the trade but I can admit when I was wrong.

As far as what Chicago got, Lauri and Dunn were questionable on day 1. Lavine wasn't highly regarded either, particularly coming off the knee issue. Lavine turned it around but . . . now has knee issues.

Hindsight is always great but its also a trap. Anyone at any time can be second guessed using perfection as a bar. Overall though the Butler trade was just one in a long series of mistakes by GarPax during the 2012-2020 period which put the team in a really bad place.


I'm not saying Jimmy isn't the best player in the deal, but I don't think that examines properly the alternate path.

There were significant mitigating factors that had you kept him may have also blown up in your face:
1: Butler has demonstrated the he is difficult to coach and get along with and this was already a problem here. This lead to his exit on two additional teams (with more talent) and may have been part of his exit here and may have been part of his exit in the future.

2: Butler has demonstrated that he desperately wants to win and his issues would exacerbate in a scenario that wasn't the case or he didn't feel the people around him were as serious as him, and that was also the situation here, which also contributes to the idea that his stay may have been untenable.

3: Butler left Philly as a FA (though to the agreement of both sides in a S&T), and there is every reason to think he may not have opted to stay here as a FA give the two above things.

4: Butler returned WAY WAY less each other time he changed teams, so if any of the above circumstances did happen, Chicago would be even worse off.

5: Butler if he stayed here would have been on a more expensive deal and been even more difficult to build around, and the Bulls didn't have great asses to make it happen. It's unlikely (though not impossible) that Chicago would have had the pieces to put around Butler to turn this into a success.

Jimmy is clearly the best player in the Jimmy Butler deal, hands down, not even close, and maybe it absolutely was a mistake trading him, but we don't know what would have happened if we kept him. It is incredibly plausible, perhaps even highly likely that he would have demanded a trade and we would have gotten Robert Covington or some useless crap back instead of a two time all-star six years younger than him that can serve as an important piece.

So I can say with hindsight, Jimmy Butler was the best player no doubt, but I think if I look at the situation, I am not sure that keeping Butler would have been better because of the other circumstances around the trade. Sure, maybe if you could have kept Butler and drawn a perfect line of follow up moves, but you could say the same if you traded Butler and had a perfect line of follow moves. You trade Butler and draft Bam Adebayo instead of Lauri Markkanen, you tank that year and draft Luka Doncic instead of Wendell Carter Jr, now your core is Zach, Bam, and Luka, and you're set to win a whole ton of titles.

That's a similar set of approach to people in this thread that literally say things like you could have built around Jimmy with a bunch of late draft picks like Miami. Maybe. Maybe if we had perhaps the best coach and best GM in basketball like the Heat do, but we don't and didn't.

At the time, I was more pro trade Jimmy than keep Jimmy, but I didn't feel incredibly strongly about it (especially after seeing the return), but I said there is probably no good chance to win, and when Butler goes elsewhere, people will look at his success and say "why couldn't that happen here" and the reason was because it was Jimmy and a pile of absolutely nothing here, and that whatever we did it was likely going to look like a loss.
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Re: the Jimmy Butler Trade in Hindsight 

Post#180 » by coldfish » Thu May 19, 2022 1:55 pm

dougthonus wrote:
coldfish wrote:At the time, there was a pretty big debate here. It wasn't like trading him was a unanimous decision as being a good idea. Once the trade went through, the support eroded further due to the return. Its not like questioning the trade is some out of left field concept.

Now with the benefit of hindsight, it was a really terrible idea. As I noted above, I was actually for trading him before the trade but I can admit when I was wrong.

As far as what Chicago got, Lauri and Dunn were questionable on day 1. Lavine wasn't highly regarded either, particularly coming off the knee issue. Lavine turned it around but . . . now has knee issues.

Hindsight is always great but its also a trap. Anyone at any time can be second guessed using perfection as a bar. Overall though the Butler trade was just one in a long series of mistakes by GarPax during the 2012-2020 period which put the team in a really bad place.


I'm not saying Jimmy isn't the best player in the deal, but I don't think that examines properly the alternate path.

There were significant mitigating factors that had you kept him may have also blown up in your face:
1: Butler has demonstrated the he is difficult to coach and get along with and this was already a problem here. This lead to his exit on two additional teams (with more talent) and may have been part of his exit here and may have been part of his exit in the future.

2: Butler has demonstrated that he desperately wants to win and his issues would exacerbate in a scenario that wasn't the case or he didn't feel the people around him were as serious as him, and that was also the situation here, which also contributes to the idea that his stay may have been untenable.

3: Butler left Philly as a FA (though to the agreement of both sides in a S&T), and there is every reason to think he may not have opted to stay here as a FA give the two above things.

4: Butler returned WAY WAY less each other time he changed teams, so if any of the above circumstances did happen, Chicago would be even worse off.

5: Butler if he stayed here would have been on a more expensive deal and been even more difficult to build around, and the Bulls didn't have great asses to make it happen. It's unlikely (though not impossible) that Chicago would have had the pieces to put around Butler to turn this into a success.

Jimmy is clearly the best player in the Jimmy Butler deal, hands down, not even close, and maybe it absolutely was a mistake trading him, but we don't know what would have happened if we kept him. It is incredibly plausible, perhaps even highly likely that he would have demanded a trade and we would have gotten Robert Covington or some useless crap back instead of a two time all-star six years younger than him that can serve as an important piece.

So I can say with hindsight, Jimmy Butler was the best player no doubt, but I think if I look at the situation, I am not sure that keeping Butler would have been better because of the other circumstances around the trade. Sure, maybe if you could have kept Butler and drawn a perfect line of follow up moves, but you could say the same if you traded Butler and had a perfect line of follow moves. You trade Butler and draft Bam Adebayo instead of Lauri Markkanen, you tank that year and draft Luka Doncic instead of Wendell Carter Jr, now your core is Zach, Bam, and Luka, and you're set to win a whole ton of titles.

That's a similar set of approach to people in this thread that literally say things like you could have built around Jimmy with a bunch of late draft picks like Miami. Maybe. Maybe if we had perhaps the best coach and best GM in basketball like the Heat do, but we don't and didn't.

At the time, I was more pro trade Jimmy than keep Jimmy, but I didn't feel incredibly strongly about it (especially after seeing the return), but I said there is probably no good chance to win, and when Butler goes elsewhere, people will look at his success and say "why couldn't that happen here" and the reason was because it was Jimmy and a pile of absolutely nothing here, and that whatever we did it was likely going to look like a loss.


Overall, it was definitely possible to build around Jimmy with middling assets as you note. Miami has done a very good job and should get a ton of credit but they don't have a ton of high end assets around Jimmy. Again, with the benefit of hindsight the easy answer is to keep Jimmy and to fire GarPaxBerg.

To a large degree, the logical conclusion to "no point in keeping Jimmy with a bad FO and coach" is "what is the point at all?" Almost no matter who you get, GarPaxBerg was going to destroy it.

Side note: Its funny that Jimmy bounced between Chicago to Minnesota to Philly and then left with all of the same root cause. An incompetent front office person mis-evaluating him and refusing the max contract. Philly liked Tobias over Jimmy. Minny liked Wiggins over him. Chicago liked flexibility. I always wonder how some people get into management positions because there isn't a lot of competence.

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