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Forget Jimmy Butler because Chicago is going to pay him

Chuck - Red's Army January 9, 2015 Rumors 10 Comments

If you had dreams of the Celtics signing Bulls RFA Jimmy Butler to a max contract this off-season, wake up and forget it:

Internally, the Bulls are planning to take a proactive approach to contract negotiations with Butler next July and secure the shooting guard for a long-term spot alongside Derrick Rose.

They fully expect to sign Butler to a max deal next July before another team even gets involved to tempt him with an offer sheet, which the CBA says they can after the moratorium ends. They accept that the size of Butler’s contract will put the Bulls in position to pay the luxury tax, something Chairman Jerry Reinsdorf says he will do for a championship contender his team is.

I’ve been praying to the salary cap gods that Chicago wouldn’t be able to afford a lavish contract thrown Butler’s way. But Dan Feldman of Pro Basketball Talk has the numbers that show Chicago can throw Butler at least $15 mil annually and still keep the core in tact.

I won’t ruin your weekend by reminding you that the Celtics bypassed Butler and ended up with JaJuan Johnson in the 2011 draft.

Dave

The last part I tend to think about quite a bit haha. Even Chandler Parsons wondered why they passed up on him too.
- swissflix
  
  To be fair the same has to be said about all the other teams that passed up on him…including teams with top ten picks. I guess steals like Butler or Sprewell always make people think about what could have been.
  - Dave
    
    Well it doesn’t help when you hear about stuff like this:
    
    “How does the coach of the Boston Celtics not draft me?” Parsons said.
    
    http://blog.chron.com/ultimaterockets/2012/12/parsons-thought-he-would-be-plaing-for-rivers-in-boston/
    
    Doc on Jimmy Butler:
    
    “I loved him. You know, his whole story” Rivers said before Monday’s loss to the Bulls. “… I thought he was a tough kid. As the draft was coming, I really liked him, especially where we were picking with the Celtics. I thought he’d be a great Celtic at that time.”
    
    http://www.foxsports.com/west/story/bulls-jimmy-butler-is-playing-himself-into-max-contract-territory-111814
    - swissflix
      
      Ouch. Curse you, Doc.
      - Dave
        
        I wouldn’t say it’s Doc’s fault since Danny gets the final say on things, if anything Danny should have listened to Doc more.
      - Eisenhorn1976
        
        This is exactly why Danny with a boat load of picks doesn’t inspire much confidence. We’re basically giving him 11 chances (or more) in the next 4 drafts to screw things up…
      - forever_green
        
        DA needs everyone of those picks to make up for those mistakes. That he will make!
      - Dave
        
        For someone that has overlooked many sleepers or even better prospects that Doc liked it’s only now that he decides to build through the draft.
        
        Even with the Big 4 here Boston still wasn’t a major free agent attraction, the only people that really wanted to come here were those that genuinely wanted to win which is pretty rare now a days.
        
        Guys like Butler, Gasol, or even guys like DJ, Asik, Pekovic, Dragic, or Parsons definitely would have made a difference and would have extended the Big 3 run here as well as making a nice transition from the Big 3 era to a younger still contender status team with Rondo still here.
Astarot

There’s the answer why teams want to keep their players, why they are doing everything they can to keep them.To me it’s gonna get harder and harder to pull the KG kind of trade. The circumstances would have to be extremely favorable. As soon as teams have two very good core kind of players they stick to them and keep on building.
Sean

Hindsight is 20/20. I watched Parsons his whole time at UF and I was pissed when we passed him up.