Alright, so I spent some time this afternoon digging into this whole Jimmy Butler to the Lakers idea. It’s been floating around, you know, whispers here and there, and I figured, let me actually sit down and see what it would take. Not just reading headlines, but actually trying to piece it together like a real thing.
First thing I did was pull up the current rosters and the salary cap stuff. You gotta start there, right? Money makes the world go round, especially in the NBA. So I looked at Jimmy’s contract. Big number, obviously. He’s earned it, but yeah, it’s hefty. Then I looked at the Lakers’ books.
Matching Salaries – The Big Hurdle
Okay, this is where it got tricky fast. The Lakers don’t have a ton of big, easily movable contracts that aren’t, you know, LeBron or AD. And you’re not trading those guys for Jimmy Butler. So I started looking at the next tier. Guys like D’Angelo Russell (if he opts in or does a sign-and-trade, which adds another layer of complication), Rui Hachimura, Austin Reaves. Maybe Gabe Vincent, Jarred Vanderbilt?
I literally grabbed a notepad – old school, I know – and started jotting down combinations. Trying to get the outgoing salary from the Lakers to roughly match Jimmy’s incoming salary, following the league rules. It’s not just dollar-for-dollar, there are percentages and rules depending on team salary levels. It gets messy.
So I tried a few things using one of those online trade machine tools. Just punching in names to see if the site gave a green light on the finances.
- Put in Russell, Hachimura, and maybe a smaller contract like Jalen Hood-Schifino. Still felt a bit short sometimes, depending on the exact numbers and timing.
- Threw Reaves in there instead of maybe Russell. That gets closer salary-wise, but man, trading Reaves would sting for the Lakers fanbase. He’s a popular guy.
- Had to remember picks too. Miami isn’t just giving Butler away for salary filler. They’d want picks. Lots of them. Future first-rounders.
What About the Picks?
This was the next step. Looked up what draft picks the Lakers actually control. It’s not as straightforward as you’d think. They owe picks, they have swaps, there’s the Stepien Rule preventing trading consecutive future firsts. Had to untangle that mess. Seemed like they could probably scrape together two or three first-rounders to offer, but maybe not the huge haul Miami might want for a star like Butler.
Thinking from Miami’s Side
Then I stopped and thought, why would the Heat even do this? Butler’s their guy, the heart of that team. Unless they feel he’s asking for too much money going forward, or maybe they think his window with them is closing and they want to get assets back now? It’s hard to say. Pat Riley usually gets what he wants, but trading Jimmy feels like a massive shift for them.
So after fiddling with the trade machine, checking the cap rules, looking at the picks, and trying to get inside Miami’s head… the whole thing just felt really complicated to pull off. Not impossible, maybe, but definitely difficult.
End Result of My tinkering
Basically, my little exercise showed me it takes a lot of pieces fitting just right. The Lakers would have to give up significant players and valuable future draft picks. It would reshape their roster quite a bit around LeBron and AD. And Miami would have to be truly ready to move on from the Butler era.
So yeah, spent a good hour or so on it. Fun thought experiment, definitely got the brain working trying to make the puzzle pieces fit. But walking away from it, feels like more of a long shot than a sure thing. Lots of hurdles. Guess we just gotta watch and see if the front offices get more creative than I did on my laptop this afternoon.
