Could the Mavericks make a Jimmy Butler trade work?
And not just in terms of providing value...could they actually make the money work?
Jimmy Butler appears to be the biggest name heading into this season’s trade deadline. His preferred destinations include the Phoenix Suns Houston Rockets, Golden State Warriors, and Dallas Mavericks.
I went over these teams in the video above yesterday. Of the group, I think the Warriors make the most sense since they have plenty of expiring salaries, first-round draft picks, and one particular player whose trade candidacy feels impending. All those factors could satisfy the Heat and lead to the most simple trade path.
The Rockets could make a deal happen but may prefer to cash in their chips on a different All-Star later. They probably also don’t want to marginalize Amen Thompson.
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That leaves the Mavericks, a title contender who make a good deal of sense as a Butler fit on paper. However, there are multiple complications in completing a deal.
For starters, they don’t have any young players as promising as Jonathan Kuminga or anyone on the Rockets. But they can trade two unprotected first-round picks, one in 2025 (likely in the 20s) and one in 2031. They also could include a 2026 first-round pick swap.
If this is the best offer the Heat have on the table for Butler by the trade deadline, they may as well keep him and revisit the situation in the offseason. With so few competitive teams with cap space this summer, he could opt into his $52.4 million player option. This would give them another opportunity to trade him later. They could also extend him ahead of the offseason.
But let’s say the Heat are set on moving Butler by this season’s trade deadline and the Mavs have enough stuff to get a deal done — can they even make a trade work legally given their payroll limitations?
The Mavs are currently $526,220 below the first apron and cannot exceed it at any point this season. Trading for a player earning as much as Butler ($48.8 million) essentially becomes about keeping the incoming and outgoing salaries identical for the most part.
Getting the salaries to match would be pretty simple with one of Luka Doncic ($43 million) and Kyrie Irving ($41 million), but I’ve got a hunch the Mavs aren’t interested in moving either player.
That means that the Mavs will need to trade four of the following five: Klay Thompson ($15.9 million), P.J. Washington ($15.5 million), Daniel Gafford ($13.4 million), Maxi Kleber ($11 million), and Naji Marshall ($8.6 million). If they’re set on going all in on Butler, that means sacrificing depth to optimize their best five-man group. In that case, they’d probably like to keep Washington as well.
The remaining four players combine for $48.84 million, slightly more than Butler’s $48.8 million. Not only that, but it’s within striking distance of his trade bonus that would increase his salary to his $49.2 million max. It would be pragmatic for him to get the whole thing since that would allow him to extend immediately. If he waives any portion of it, he cannot extend for six months, meaning he’d be unextendable1 for the rest of this season if traded after December 30, 2024.
So are the Mavs good to do this 4 for 1? Not quite. This structure would leave them so close to the first apron that they couldn’t get back to 14 players while staying below it. For good measure, they’ll want to move off another small salary like Markieff Morris ($2.1 million).
It would also make sense to get this done as close to the trade deadline as possible because of the roster spot shuffle. Since they’re essentially doing a 5 for 12, they’d drop to 11 players. They would have to sign a player to a rest-of-season deal immediately, then wait two weeks to get back to 14 players. One of those players must also be for the rest of the season while the other can be a 10-day.
The sequence would go like this:
So yes, the Mavericks could technically get a deal done this season while keeping most of their core. In this scenario, they sacrifice their depth for a strong top five + Quentin Grimes. That’s the big downside to this type of deal, but its the type of move that could maximize their title odds.
However, the logistics of such a transaction decrease its odds of completion. The Heat are currently projected with a $21 million luxury tax penalty. If they’re trading Butler AND getting worse this season, they’ll want to reduce payroll and tax. And if they were to take all of these players, that would require them to likely waive players first to make room for these extra incoming players. All this means would realistically lead to a third or fourth team getting involved to take on some of these players.
Could these teams be willing to reroute draft equity to the Heat for some of these outgoing Mavericks players? It’s hard to say, but completing this framework would get further complicated if extra teams require incentives from the Mavericks to take on these players. Aside from all the limited first-round picks mentioned earlier, they only have one second-round pick to offer.
Any team that acquires Butler could extend him immediately (provided he gets his full trade bonus). It would require him to decline his player option for 2025-26, and he could add up to two years, totaling three years (including the current season). The first-year salary could be as high as his maximum amount for next season or a lower amount thanks to the new extension rules.
An extension could only take his deal through the 2026-27 season due to the Over 38 rule. However, he has a window in the 2025 offseason to get a four-year deal if he opts out and becomes a free agent. Since he will be 36 years old next season, he can re-sign with his team for up to four years3 with his full Bird Rights.
The big question for any team interested in acquiring Butler is his salary demands. If the Heat doesn’t want to extend him during this season, it makes sense for him to get moved to a team that gives up assets for him. Such a team would be motivated to extend him as soon as possible, or at least give assurances about the type of deal he wants this summer.
If I had to guess, I think Butler most likely won’t get moved this season. The Heat still have time beyond the trade deadline to decide on his future. They may not feel the pressure to move him with no competitive teams set to have significant cap space this summer.4
And even though they don’t stick out as a title contender, they have made two surprising Finals runs in the previous five seasons without any home-court advantage. With the East looking wide open as usual, it’s not unreasonable for them to believe this group can make a deep run again.
This is technically not a real word but one I’ll probably use often in this Substack.
Doesn’t necessarily need to be all in one trade. Could be multiple deals.
This is what allowed Chris Paul to sign a four-year deal with the Suns in 2021 even though the deal took him past his age 38 season.
Right now, only Brooklyn and maybe Washington are expected to have significant cap space.