Per report, Jimmy Butler will be happy to meet with the Miami Heat once free agency begins. However, the Heat don’t have the cap space to sign him, so a sign-and-trade would be necessary.
According to a report, Jimmy Butler is more than willing to meet with the Miami Heat once free agency begins. It’s a nice notion, but the Heat look to begin free agency with about $141 million on the books, massively above the $109 million salary cap, and offering him a max contract would require cutting more than $60 million off the books.
Needless to say, that’s quite unlikely, so if anything is to come of this, another way must be found.
Enter the sign-and-trade, a mechanism which would allow the Philadelphia 76ers to re-sign Butler for the express purpose of trading him to another team of his choosing. Under the sign-and-trade, the Sixers could sign him to the maximum allowed for another team (in this case, $32.7 million for the first season and $140 million over four years) and conduct a legal trade.
There would be a catch for the Miami Heat: They would need to finish the trade with a total team salary of no more than $138 million, which is the luxury tax apron, and also the threshold at which a team receiving a sign-and-trade becomes hard-capped. The Heat could cut that salary before the trade, or they can send out sufficient salary in conducting the trade in order to get below that mark, but they must shed that salary by the end of this trade in order to conduct it.
With the basic outline of how the sign-and-trade works and the restrictions surrounding it, let’s take a look at a couple of possible packages that might entice both the Sixers and Jimmy Butler himself.
Scenario No. 1
The Sixers would likely look to acquire a package with a couple of young players, a veteran and a draft pick. In Goran Dragic, Josh Richardson and Bam Adebayo, they would tick off each box.
Over the past few years, the Sixers have struggled to produce anything close to a pure point guard, somebody who can stretch the floor and provide shooting along with capable ball-handling, and Dragic would fill that role more than adequately.
Richardson could fill the now vacated wing role that Jimmy Butler would be leaving, and Adebayo could single-handedly repair the massive deficit of depth on the Sixers roster behind Joel Embiid. While Boban Marjanovic can be a tremendous asset at times in specific matchups, he struggles to play the kind of minutes load the team needs when Embiid gets nights off or needs a blow.
This trade leaves the Miami Heat a bit short on the salary requirement, however. The Heat would be receiving back $32.7 million in salary, and only sending out about $32.8 million. There are a variety of ways this could be rectified, including waiving Derrick Jones Jr. and either Yante Maten or Duncan Robinson, all of whom have minimum non-guaranteed salaries, or including them in the trade.
Scenario No. 2
A whole different approach would involve Ryan Anderson and Justise Winslow, with Adebayo remaining as the linchpin of the deal.
The Sixers may find value in the inclusion of Anderson’s expiring non-guaranteed contract in the form of stretching and waiving him. Anderson has a $21.264 million salary in 2019-20, but only $15.6 million of that is guaranteed. If Sixers were to waive him before July 10th, his cap hit would be reduced from $21 million to just $5.2 million, but spread out over this season and the two seasons thereafter.
This would enable the Sixers to find savings of almost $16 million this season, which could be critical as they’re looking to re-sign Tobias Harris to what should be a max contract. Anderson’s stretched contract could go a long way towards saving them a massive amount of money by avoiding the luxury tax (or at least reducing the luxury tax bill).
In addition to tax savings, the Sixers would get two talented young players in exchange for Jimmy Butler’s services, including Adebayo once again, and Justise Winslow who could replace his role with the Sixers.
Anderson’s inclusion would also allow the Miami Heat to send out more salary, enabling them to get under the tax apron. This package would involve the Heat sending out $37.72 million while only taking back $32.7 million, getting them safely $1 million and change below the apron.