Philadelphia 76ers: Jimmy Butler sign-and-trade scenarios with the Miami Heat
If the Heat between Miami and Jimmy Butler is real, here are all of the players the Philadelphia 76ers could choose from in a sign-and-trade scenario.
If you were hoping for a peaceful free agency-eve for your friendly neighborhood Philadelphia 76ers, a surprising development involving the team’s starting small forward and the Miami Heat might ruin any sort of calm before the storm.
While Jimmy Butler‘s interest in playing in South Beach isn’t a new development, as it’s apparently been a top landing destination for months, but based on a brand new jaw-dropping bomb from ESPN Basketball Insider Ardian Wojnarowski, it looks like such a deal is picking up steam.
And weirdly enough, it looks like the Sixers are actually kind of open to it.
Sources: Jimmy Butler expected to meet the Miami Heat in South Fla. Sunday. Butler/Rockets meeting likely early week in LA. Sixers haven’t ruled out working with Butler on sign-and-trades, which Miami and Houston need to acquire the All-Star guard.
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) June 29, 2019
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Now the idea of sign-and-trading for Butler is nothing new, as the Rockets have been pining for the four-time All-Star, but unlike Houston, whose roster is basically James Harden, Chris Paul, Eric Gordon, P.J. Tucker, Clint Capella, and a much of veteran minimum guys, the Heat actually have a surprising number of interesting pieces who could effectively replace Butler’s production and then some for the same amount of money.
If Butler’s going to go, why not maximize his value and add a few intriguing pieces that aren’t available on the open market – potentially under market value?
But first we need to get the concept of sign-and-trade out of the way: if a team wants to sign a deal with a player but doesn’t have enough cap space, they can trade assets to the player’s former team of close to equal value (more on that here) to add him into the fray.
Long story short; if Butler wants a full max contract AND to play in Miami, the only realistic way to make that happen is to ship a few assets back to Philadelphia to get the deal done. But which players are the best fit with the Philadelphia 76ers and could be solid options in a sign-and-trade. With the obvious ill-fitting pieces omitted (Hassan Whiteside, Goran Dragic, Ryan Anderson, James Johnson, Dion Waters, and Kelly Olynyk), let’s take a look at the Miami Heat’s roster and find the best sign-and-trade candidates.