MettaWorldPanda wrote:It’s looking more and more likely Jimmy will be finishing out the year here. GSW looks to be shopping around for other players and the only other team in Houston that could really get a deal done that makes sense are getting cold feet.
This is what I've been talking about for now a year, the Heat's FO has put the owner in team in the tax 2 straight season which is leading towards the repeater clause. Nobody complains about this FO because they don't usually make trades without leverage to win those trades but they were a disaster last year and still not a peep. 1st, they let a solid (not great) starter in Vincent walk because they wouldn't offer him 11-12 mil a year to be their starter, then they decide, you know what, let's not let Lowry's contract expire getting us out of the aprons and tax, instead lets send a 1st and nearly 30 mil in expiring contract to a career low efficiency high volume scorer in Rozier who's on a rare hot streak in his career.
So as of now, Miami is boxed in and the repeater tax is looming, what's the easiest way out? Maybe we blame it on Butler and his contract and let him walk. I watched this kind of mind game with the media/fans happening in Chiago, the FO would screw up with signings and trades and then it would fall onto the highest paid player at the time's salary. You guys remember Luol Deng, well he just got into All-Star status in Chicago, he's doing well and then lots of media all of a sudden started talking about his large salary (all the reporters seemed to be tight with the FO) and then he's traded to Cleveland for Andrew Bynum with a 1st, a couple 2nds and a swap, interesting tidbit about Bynum, he could and did get instantly waved to get Chicago's horrible FO out of the tax, so Chicago's all-star, who nobody had an issue with most loved got trashed for nearly 1/2 a season because of the financials just to make moving him for a single 1st and a few other things acceptable to the fan base. This Butler situation isn't exactly the same but it reeks a lot like that, just like what happened with Wade feeling underappreciated for all he did and signing with Chicago and Miam's future was bad until Butler forced his way there... about half a decade. Had Butler not forced his way there, I'm not sure when this franchise would have been good enough to have a shot getting past the 1st round of the playoffs.
It's just odd how certain players who the fans love all of a sudden are the bad guys in a matter of months when the FO has painted that franchise in a financial corner, it's not the other player bad contracts they've signed and traded for that are the problem, it's the biggest contract that is the get out of jail card's problem. Even when Miami was close to being good enough to win a championship this last decade, Miami zagged how they were and started using their assets/pics to draft players that couldn't help in the next few years.
This is why I no longer am blindly just one team's fan and would rather just follow a player I like career; there's pros and cons to it but overall, I'm happier watching basketball this way. It's hard to have loyalty to organizations who have very little loyalty to their workers who are their players whom some who go above and beyond taking shots or playing injured for that particular team. OKC is about the only team who seems mostly upfront about these situations and don't trash their once beloved players to get out of financial problems (. They didn't trash Harden when they traded him because of financials, they didn't trash Westbrook or George when they traded them, they were up front with why the fanbase was overall fine with those decisions.
. I personally would have included Chris Paul, especially when you see his production at 36/37. And Westbrook's numbers would be much better if given a starter's role (he's averaging 16-9-6 per 36, which is slightly under his production in his early 30s). 
