Jimmy Butler is all about betting on Jimmy Butler.
Faced with the opportunity to sign a five-year extension this summer worth more than $90 million, Butler could be set to roll the dice with a shorter deal in order to re-enter the market for an even more substantial contract sooner.
While the Chicago Bulls have been planning to offer him the five-year maximum, Butler plans to seek out a shorter-term deal, according to Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo Sports.
The idea here would be for Butler to re-enter free agency once the salary cap has jumped dramatically, which is expected to happen in 2016 and again in 2017. Since maximum contracts are set as a percentage of the salary cap in the year they're signed, Butler's five-year maximum now is less than a two- or three-year maximum now and another maximum later. Butler essentially has four primary options for his next two contracts, which could see his average annual salary range from $18.2 million to $24.4 million based on the latest estimates.
The Bulls can still ensure that Butler doesn't go elsewhere, as they retain the right to match any offer sheet he signs elsewhere. Butler plans to meet with several teams, according to Wojnarowski, and those teams are aware that a shorter-term offer sheet is the best way to approach him. A three-year offer sheet with a player option for year three could give Butler the combination of guaranteed money and flexibility he's seeking, and things like a trade kicker and that early out could be tough for the Bulls to match.
They can protect against that by offering Butler a maximum qualifying offer, which would limit his offer sheet options. In that case, no team could offer him fewer than three years on a deal, and can't add player option years.
There remains the possibility, however slight, that Butler plays out the season on his $4.4-million qualifying offer in order to become an unrestricted free agent when the cap jumps in 2016. That's a risky play that forgoes a lot of money in the near-term, but this is the same player who turned down a four-year, $44-million deal in October, then played his way into a maximum contract as the league's Most Improved Player.
While the Bulls will have avenues available to keep him, doing so long-term will mean selling Butler on their vision for the franchise. They have a new head coach in Fred Hoiberg, and while Butler has been adamant he'll ultimately stay in Chicago, Wojnarowski says there are rumblings that Butler and Derrick Rose aren't the most tidy fit together in the offense, and that Butler is intrigued with the possibility of joining the Los Angeles Lakers.
The 25-year-old Butler averaged 20 points, 5.8 rebounds, 3.3 assists, and 1.8 steals this season while canning 37.8 percent of his 3-point attempts, numbers that give a player 30 options in free agency.
There are still two weeks before any of these talks can even be done in the open, so saying plenty can happen is an understatement. But more than Draymond Green, Khris Middleton, or any other restricted free agent, Butler's July is worth keeping a discerning eye on.
