Milwaukee Bucks should go all in for Jimmy Butler

News broke Wednesday that Jimmy Butler has demanded a trade from the Minnesota Timberwolves and the Milwaukee Bucks should make a move for the All-Star.

It’s not very often a player of Jimmy Butler’s caliber becomes available. With that being said, the Milwaukee Bucks need to go all in to obtain his services. However, first, we need to preface what “all in” means in this case.  The Bucks should be aggressive and willing to offer almost anything for Jimmy Butler with the two following caveats:

1. Khris Middleton cannot be included in the trade.
   • The Bucks need a third star to legitimately compete for a championship, trading K-Midd for Butler would be an improvement but still not get the Bucks where they need to be.
   • Considering the risk of Butler being able to opt-out and become a free agent next summer, the Bucks cannot lose Middleton in a deal.  The Bucks have a pretty good chance of signing Middleton to a long-term contract next summer.
   • Getting Butler without Middleton is easier said than done, but we will talk about how we can make the trade later in the article.
2. Giannis Antetokounmpo has to have no major issues with Butler.
   • The main goal is to win a championship but the other obvious goal is to keep Antetokounmpo long-term.  The Bucks front office would have to make sure Antetokounmpo doesn’t have any ongoing “beef” with Jimmy Buckets.  The only reason I bring this up is that there is a playoff history between those two and several times I recall Butler talking major trash to Antetokounmpo.

Adding Butler would immediately add the No. 2 guy the Bucks are looking for next to Antetokounmpo and move Middleton to where most Bucks fans want him as an overqualified No. 3 option. Milwaukee would immediately be in contention to win the Eastern Conference competing with the Boston Celtics, Toronto Raptors, and Philadelphia 76ers.  A big three of Antetokounmpo, Butler, and Middleton would be better than any three the Raptors or Sixers have.  The Celtics would have better depth of talent but you can easily make the argument that Antetokounmpo and Butler are as good if not better than any one player on the Celtics.

Trading for Butler would certainly come with some risk.  As mentioned above, Butler can opt out and become a free agent next summer.  He has also released which teams he would willing to sign an extension with.  News Flash – the Bucks weren’t a preferred destination for a big star.  Butler is reportedly interested in the Brooklyn Nets, Los Angels Clippers and New York Knicks.  Regardless, the Bucks should still move forward with an offer and hope they can sell him on Milwaukee and the organization.

We have seen several examples of this situation recently.  Most notably Paul George and Kawhi Leonard. On the Indiana Pacers, a year before his contract was up, George told the team he would not re-sign and would be targeting the Los Angeles Lakers in free agency.  The Thunder went after him anyway with the hope of convincing him to stay, and it bet was worth it as they ended up resigning George to a long-term contract this off-season.

Kawhi Leonard’s preferred destination was also Los Angeles this off-season but Toronto took the leap anyway.  The jury is still out on whether this huge risk will be worth it for the Raptors but they are working on convincing him to stay.

The Bucks have a few things going for them in terms of convincing Butler to sign long-term.  The first and most obvious is the Milwaukee connection of Butler playing his college ball at Marquette.  Butler is at least familiar with the city.  I’m not convinced this would have a huge impact on where Butler wants to sign and you could actually make the argument he would be less likely to sign because he’s lived in the city before.  Another thing the Bucks have going for them has to do with one of the reasons Butler wants to be traded in the first place.  According to this article:

"Jimmy Butler is reportedly “all but fed up with the nonchalant attitude of his younger Wolves teammates, specifically Karl-Anthony Towns.”"

There are many adjectives you could use to describe the Bucks best player, Antetokounmpo, but “nonchalant” is not one of them.  Antetokounmpo is one of hardest working, most fiery players there is in the league today and that sounds like what Jimmy Butler is looking for in a teammate.

Lastly, the Bucks would be a team capable of making the finals with Butler.  That along with the winning culture being established by new coach Mike Budenholzer would create a pretty desirable situation that could not be equaled by the Nets, Clippers, or Knicks without a series of other moves by those teams.

Ok now, how can Milwaukee acquire Butler without giving up Middleton?

The Bucks certainly don’t have the top end assets that the Nets, Clippers, and Knicks do.  The Nets have their own first round pick next year (finally), the Clippers have nice young players in Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Tobias Harris, and the Knicks have Kevin Knox as well as their likely lottery pick next year.

However, given that Butler has come out and said where he would like to sign long-term, teams may be unwilling to trade significant assets knowing that they could just wait a year and sign him as a free agent. We have already seen this scenario with George and Leonard where the Lakers were not aggressive in making moves for either player and decided to take their chances in free agency.

The Knicks have already come out and said they would not trade for an upcoming free agent.  Then you have the other teams who aren’t on Butler’s list of preferred destinations that would be unwilling to offer a whole lot in the fear he wouldn’t resign. This all creates an environment for the Bucks to, perhaps, get a deal done.

Here are a few options on how to get Jimmy Butler on the Bucks:

Trade No 1: The most simple offer.

Snell has to be included to get close to matching salaries but he still is a capable three-and-D guy. Tom Thibodeau has also been collecting former Bulls on his roster over the last few years too.  Brogdon, Maker, and DiVincenzo are all cheap, young assets with some upside and we’d have to hope Thibs was a big fan of at least one or two of these guys.

The future first may not be super attractive considering the Bucks will be very good after this trade.  It would also be complicated to trade a first as the Bucks still owe the Phoenix Suns a first for the Eric Bledsoe trade.  The Bucks would either have to trade the reverse of the protections for the owed pick to the Suns or it would have to be a 2022 1st.

Trade No. 2:  Simple + PG Swap

Basically adding on to trade No. 1, the Bucks and Wolves would be swapping point guards as well.  This would add value to the Wolves for a couple of reasons. One is that they’d get a slight upgrade at point guard, and the other is that they’d essentially be clearing some money off their books for next year. Teague makes 19 million per year for the next two years whereas Bledsoe is on an expiring $15 million contract.

If the Wolves are trading Butler anyway, they may want to also clear the overpaid Jeff Teague.  This would actually be sneakily at least ok for the Bucks as Teague would be reunited with Coach Bud and he may be a better fit alongside Antetokounmpo, Butler, and Middleton than Bledsoe.  The bad thing about this trade is that it likely will put the Bucks into the tax.

Trade No. 3: Crazy 3-Teamer

The main motivation here for the Wolves is to the clear their bad contracts in Dieng and Teague.  They do that by swapping in Bledsoe and Chandler, both of whom are on expiring deals.  The Suns have been looking for a veteran point guard and also were rumored to be interested in DiVincenzo in the draft.  The Bucks here would be absorbing the worst contract in Dieng but that is what may have to happen to get a deal done.

The bottom line is that the Bucks have to go all-in at some point, and it should be before Giannis is due to sign his extension in 2020.  And although it seems like a lot of all-stars have been traded lately, usually guys like Jimmy Butler aren’t available.  Now’s a time as good as any to show Giannis we are serious about winning a championship.