Jimmy Butler trade rumors: Three under-the-radar landing spots for Heat star ahead of deadline

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When the first Jimmy Butler trade rumors started to trickle in earlier in the season, they focused largely on four teams: the Phoenix Suns, Golden State Warriors, Dallas Mavericks and Houston Rockets. All four made obvious sense beyond Butler's reported preferences. All four play in the Western Conference, far away from Butler's Miami Heat. All four harbor short-term championship ambitions. Two, like Butler, are operating with a sense of urgency. The Warriors and Suns are old and expensive. The other two, Dallas and Houston, play in Butler's home state of Texas.

But all four potential matches carry complications. The Rockets have made it plain publicly that they do not plan to make any star trades this season. According to The Athletic, the Warriors are unlikely to pursue a Butler deal either. The Suns would surely love to make a blockbuster, but need Bradley Beal to waive his no-trade clause to do so. Even if he is willing to do so, why would the Heat want to take on that contract? The Mavericks don't have a single, albatross contract giving them problems in these negotiations, but their salary structure really isn't built to accommodate another max contract. They'd have to aggregate basically all of their mid-sized salaries.

That doesn't take a deal off of the table by any means, but it does suggest that we should broaden our search for viable destinations. Fortunately, Butler isn't picky. He is reportedly open to playing for any of the 29 other NBA teams besides the Heat, so any sensible deal is theoretically an option for the six-time All-Star. So let's try to find a workable deal without including any of those four oft-cited teams. Here are three under-the-radar suitors for Butler.

1. Memphis Grizzlies

The ideal Butler team should check the following boxes:

Close enough to the championship picture that a Butler acquisition could theoretically put them over the top.Deep enough to make a three- or four-for-one trade without becoming too thin.Rich enough in draft capital to give some to Miami without impacting its own long-term plans. Poor enough in draft capital not to be able to afford a safer, younger superstar trade.

This basically describes the Grizzlies to a tee. They're the No. 2 seed in the West right now and have never made the Western Conference finals with this core. A Butler swing is exactly the sort of move that could make them competitive with the Oklahoma City Thunder and give them a leg up on the rest of the field, but would come at a price that is at least cost effective enough not to prevent future significant trades down the line. The Grizzlies control all of their own first-round picks, but none from other teams, so they could send some picks Miami's way in the short-term and then replenish before a pivot a few years down the line. The Grizzlies are one of the NBA's deepest teams. They can handle losing a few key role players. In this case, the players likely to serve as salary flotsam would be Marcus Smart, Brandon Clarke and Luke Kennard.

There's an important financial element to this possibility that we need to cover before going any further. Virtually any Butler-to-Memphis possibility needs to come with the understanding that this is a two-year arrangement. Butler would need to pick up his player option for next season knowing he would not be extended beyond then, because Jaren Jackson Jr. needs a new deal after the 2025-26 season, and with max contracts for Ja Morant and Desmond Bane factored in, paying Butler max money at that point would simply not be tenable. Perhaps they could re-sign him at a lower dollar figure for multiple years at that point, but the sort of extension he's reportedly sought out of Miami just isn't on the table here.

If Butler can live with that, the Grizzlies make perfect sense. They've spent the entire Morant era hunting for a big, versatile wing. The Ziaire Williams pick flopped. They've even tried to pluck that player off of the Heat before when they traded for Justise Winslow back in 2019.  Butler could be that player for them. He fits the franchise's gritty, defense-first approach to basketball, and could even replace some of the edge that was lost when Dillon Brooks signed with the Rockets. Depending on the pick cost, the risk would be minimal without an extension, but the reward is a potential championship run. There's a reason some books have treated the Grizzlies as the betting favorite for Butler over the past few days. The fit makes perfect sense.

2. Sacramento Kings

Now, let's get this out of the way: I wouldn't advise this sort of trade if I were the Kings. One of the big reasons they're losing games is that they don't make enough 3s and they allow far too many. Butler might help with the latter. He's still a very good defender. He's not helping with the former. A Butler-De'Aaron Fox partnership comes with many of the same problems that the Fox-DeMar DeRozan duo has had. It's very hard to build a great offense around two ball-handlers that are average or worse 3-point shooters, especially when you also have a center who isn't known for his shooting yet needs the ball quite a bit. The Kings are already out one first-round pick from the Kevin Huerter trade, and another swap from the DeRozan deal. Do they really want to stake more draft capital on a win-now move for an older player when Fox's long-term status with the team is so tenuous?

Well, a normal team would probably say no, but as we've covered lately, the Kings are not a normal team. This is exactly the sort of desperation move a team that just fired the unanimous 2023 Coach of the Year would make. It's a potential out on the DeRozan deal, as he would almost certainly be in any deal and would theoretically allow the Heat to continue trying to win, which seems to be their preference. Huerter would likely be in the deal for salary purposes as well, which would have the beneficial trickle-down effect of ensuring that Keon Ellis' recent uptick in playing time remains permanent.

But most importantly, it's yet another chance to prove to Fox that this team is serious about winning. I would argue that proving long-term prudence and planning to Fox should be the more important goal, but, well, I'm not running the Kings. They've seemingly been fixated on big names in the trade market for years now, and given the sense of urgency the Mike Brown firing created, this is the sort of move front office executives trying to save their jobs would seem likelier to try to make.

3. San Antonio Spurs

Things are going well for the Spurs. There's no real need to force a major move. They're 18-17 and in the No. 9 seed as of this writing. At the very least, barring injuries, they're almost certain to at least be a Play-In Tournament team. They could even potentially make the top six. But the advantage of their overall position right now is that they have so much draft capital to work with that trading for someone like Butler would be a relatively trivial matter in the long term.

Say the Spurs match salary with inessential long-term pieces like Keldon Johnson, Harrison Barnes and Blake Wesley. They could grease the wheels with plenty of draft capital without touching the mound of it they've built over the past several years, meaning they wouldn't be locked out of the higher-upside star trade they'd surely prefer to make a bit later. If they don't extend Butler, they could let him walk after Victor Wembanyama's third season. That's important because that would give the Spurs one more summer with Wembanyama on a rookie deal before paying him market-rate, so they could enter 2026 free agency, which has a strong class, with a max deal to offer. Put all of that together and there's just not much at risk for the Spurs here, depending on where the final price lands.

The rewards are potentially substantial. Nobody would pick the Spurs to win a championship with a Wembanyama-Butler core, but putting Butler in the mix could make the Spurs a real threat to win a round or two. That experience not only for Wembanyama, but the entire young core in San Antonio, could be invaluable down the line. Butler's presence would only reinforce the good work habits that Chris Paul is currently teaching those young players. Even if he never comes close to winning a title for the Spurs, getting him now could help the rest of the roster climb that mountain later. For the right price, that's a worthwhile trade.