Has everyone caught their breath yet? Not sure about you, but I’m on my 7th cup of coffee and I’m still mentally drained from everything that’s transpired for Bulls Nation in the last 24 hours. Chicago traded Taj Gibson and Doug McDermott to the Oklahoma City Thunder just minutes before the NBA trade deadline passed at 2:00 today.
We’ll get to how that trade affects the team’s future soon enough, but right now the bigger story is what didn’t happen. Amid a flurry of conflicting reports, the Bulls held firm on the stance that they had no plans to trade All Star Jimmy Butler before the deadline.
Who Knows What?
When I say conflicting reports…goodness. The “discussions” between the Bulls and Boston Celtics for a potential Butler trade ranged from nonexistent to being one piece away from completion.
Here’s a sample of what different reporters were told about Butler and the Celtics:
League source says Boston never made this year's Brooklyn pick available to Bulls in trade discussions centered around Jimmy Butler.
— Nick Friedell (@NickFriedell) February 23, 2017
Mark one tally in the “was never going to happen” column.
Then there’s this:
Woj just said Celtics had both Nets picks on the table.
— Jason Patt (@Bulls_Jay) February 23, 2017
Adrian Wojnarowski of The Vertical believed that both of Boston’s first round picks owed to them from Brooklyn were on the negotiating table in a potential deal for Butler. Woj also said the following:
Woj says Bulls wanted core players from C's rather than young/future assets for Butler so they could "reshape the franchise on the fly" lmao
— DJ Bean (@DJ_Bean) February 23, 2017
This could just be conjecture from Woj, because two hours before the deadline he tweeted this:
Sources: Less than two hours until the NBA Trade Deadline, but no significant traction for Boston on Jimmy Butler or Paul George deals. Yet.
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@WojVerticalNBA) February 23, 2017
So what was the Bulls front office looking for? Did the trade not happen because Boston’s president Danny Ainge wasn’t willing to sacrifice his valuable draft picks? Or, did he not want to give up talented pieces of his current roster? Other reports suggest Gar Forman and John Paxson wanted players instead of picks. David Aldridge of TNT believed that Jae Crowder, much like the talks last year, is the final piece of the puzzle that both teams wanted.
Suffice it to say that no one really knows what (if anything) went down between the Bulls and Celtics front office executives leading up to this deadline. Perhaps clarity will come in time, but that doesn’t really matter at the moment.
Not Now, But Later
Interestingly, GarPax’s decision to keep Butler may be short-lived. He’ll finish out this season in a Bulls jersey, that’s for sure. But what about this summer? One Bulls insider believes it’s only a matter of time until Jimmy Buckets gets shipped.
Chatting with the guys on Waddle & Silvy after the deadline passed, ESPN Bulls reporter Nick Friedell dropped a serious hint about Butler’s future in Chicago. I tweeted Friedell’s thoughts as he was live on the air. Silvy asked Nick why he thought Butler wasn’t traded. Here’s what Nick had to say:
.@NickFriedell "I think they're hopeful once lottery happens…it opens up possibility of more teams bidding for Jimmy." #Bulls
— Matt Peck (@Bulls_Peck) February 23, 2017
.@NickFriedell "My guess is…we'd bet that Jimmy would be on his way out near the draft coming in June." #Bulls
— Matt Peck (@Bulls_Peck) February 23, 2017
.@NickFriedell "Decision hasn't been made…GarPax have been given many chances to commit to Jimmy. They haven't done it" #Bulls
— Matt Peck (@Bulls_Peck) February 23, 2017
.@NickFriedell "The rest of the roster is in such bad shape, that by the time the team was ready to compete, Jimmy would walk." #Bulls
— Matt Peck (@Bulls_Peck) February 23, 2017
There’s a lot to dissect there, but Friedell definitely has a point. The Bulls had limited options for dealing Jimmy at this trade deadline. Essentially, the Celtics were the only team capable of offering them the right pieces. We were told by multiple sources, including ESPN’s Marc Stein, that GarPax wouldn’t even listen to offers from other teams.
The Atlanta Hawks made aggressive draft pick-centric trade offers for Paul George and Jimmy Butler today, league sources tell ESPN.
— Marc Stein (@ESPNSteinLine) February 23, 2017
“Offering draft pick-centric trades? No thanks.” – GarPax
But as Friedell points out, the Bulls might find they have many more legitimate suitors for Butler once teams’ lottery picks are locked in. There’s also the possibility that some teams -who were basically inactive on deadline day – will be interested in dealing for Jimmy once they’ve assessed their rosters’ needs.
With more suitors come more offers, and GarPax could pick the one they liked best. Thus, Jimmy could very likely be on his way out as the 2017 draft approaches.
Not “The” Guy
Now to break down the next part of Friedell’s analysis. Nobody in the Bulls front office – not Forman, Paxson or either Reinsdorf – has come out and said that Butler is their untouchable franchise player. They’ve been given every chance to do so, but they haven’t. That’s something Nick brought up when he said on a different ESPN Radio interview that GarPax don’t believe Jimmy can be the #1 star on a championship-caliber team. If the front office guys truly believe that, then trading him to restart their roster is the logical choice.
At his press conference Thursday evening, Paxson still refused to say that the plan is to build around Butler. Here’s his answer when posed with that question directly:
Pax "Right now, today, Jimmy's on our roster. He's under contract for 2 more years…This league is fluid, things can change quickly" #Bulls
— Matt Peck (@Bulls_Peck) February 24, 2017
Friedell also notes that Butler may tire of playing on bad teams that can’t really contend for titles, or at least make perennial deep playoff runs. If the front office fails to build a decent team around Jimmy, he’ll surely use his player option in the summer of 2019. That could mean losing a top-ten player and getting nothing in return. It’s possible that GarPax are already thinking about that; not wanting to become the next victims of a Kevin Durant-leaving-Oklahoma situation. “We’ll trade him before he can abandon us!”
…It seems silly now, but in another way it’s a very real scenario that the Bulls front office is already contemplating.
The countdown to the deadline has come and gone, but a new countdown just started. The 2017 NBA Draft is in 118 days. That’s how long the Bulls bosses have to decide if trading Jimmy and starting over is the right move for the organization. Forman (pro-“re-tool”) and Paxson (pro-rebuild) better come to a consensus and make a logical move.
It’s asking a lot of those two, I know.
