Scholarship table
Sign and trade Butler for Kobe? Did I fall asleep and wake up in 2004?
Unfortunately for rabid suitors, the youngest free agents are the hardest ones to get. Teams aren’t allowed to offer restricted free agents like Butler one-year contracts, and since Chicago on Monday hit Butler with a fully guaranteed five-year qualifying offer, any rival deal has to run for at least three guaranteed seasons. If Chicago plays its cards right, Butler will be a Bull for at least the next three years.Butler is the only one with the power to torpedo that plan by signing a one-year qualifying offer, and entering free agency unrestricted next summer — the same path Monroe took in Detroit. The catch: Butler would earn just $4.4 million next season playing under the qualifying offer, nearly $11.5 million less than the $15.8 million he’d make in the first year of a long-term max deal from the Bulls.But the cap boom chips away at that risk by ballooning the reward at the other end. A max deal for Butler signed a year from now, with the cap at $90 million, would start at around $21 million — a massive jump. Butler could play out one season with the Bulls, sign a four-year deal next summer with another team, and make about $4 million more over that five-year period than he would re-signing with Chicago for the long haul now. That kind of upside just didn’t exist in a normal cap environment. Butler turned down an extension from Chicago last fall; is he ready to bet even bigger now?There’s an easy compromise here: Butler signs a three-year deal with another team, perhaps including a player option for a fourth season, and Chicago either matches it or signs Butler to essentially the same deal. That tethers Butler to the Bulls for most of his prime, and gives him the chance to re-enter free agency after his seventh season — the exact moment at which his max contract jumps from 25 percent of the cap to 30 percent.Butler is not a top-10 pick who has already banked $10 million. He was the 30th pick, and at some point, he needs to secure a pile of cash.
From Zach Lowe:http://grantland.com/the-triangle/the-eight-biggest-nba-free-agency-questions/I am surprised to see that the 1 year and then max only adds a total of $4 million over the next 5 years. Is an average of $800,000/year worth the risk of this year going poorly for Jimmy?