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Let's start with this: the Sixers will become a better basketball team the first time they speak with Jimmy Butler.
He is an excellent player and one of the best bidirectional wings in the NBA. It will give the Sixers a chance to fight against Toronto and Boston.
But with all the bold decisions, there are always risks.
When the exchange becomes official Monday, Elton Brand will have acquired the coveted third star since his first day at work. Although the value is right, he will also drop two of the team's main wheels.
Dario Saric and Robert Covington are not stars. Neither one nor the other will flourish in the superstar piece that the team needed to complete Joel Embiid and Ben Simmons.
But both players won the starting roles in a team that won 52 games and a playoff round last season. Both played hard and were loved by their teammates. Chemistry is a real thing in the sport and the atmosphere in the Sixers' dressing room has been extremely positive for the last year.
Which brings us back to Butler. Unless you live under the hammer, you know how Butler became a Sixer. His well-known problem with young Timberwolves players led Butler to seek out of Minnesota.
His wish has been fulfilled and Butler will surely say and do all that is good on his arrival. But how long will it last? He had problems with Derrick Rose in Chicago, so it's not an isolated incident.
Butler is known for being a hard worker and a fierce competitor. It's no secret that the defense of Karl-Anthony Towns and Andrew Wiggins leaves a lot to be desired. It was reported that Butler wanted to leave because he did not feel that Towns and Wiggins were at his level on this side of the floor. With the Sixers, it will clearly not be a problem.
What could be is the offensive end of the debate. Butler is a skilled scorer who has the ability to score at all three levels: around the basket, mid-range and starting from three.
That said, shooting in three points is not Butler's strength. He has shot 38% of his three goals this season, but is only a 34% career shooter from downtown. Butler is not a good guy either. He only shot 33.7% of shot attempts on goal last season. Without Saric and Covington, two of the team's best three-point shooters last season, that capacity will have to be replaced.
Butler has no problem getting buckets, but the way he gets them could be. It is a player who needs the ball in his hands and who scores in isolation. This will help the Sixers to the extent that they need another creator, but it could be a challenge if you consider how much Embiid and Simmons handle the ball.
Then there is age. If the Sixers manage to sign a maximum contract with Butler this summer, they enter the game early in their 30-year season. Butler's two-sided game can have detrimental consequences on a player's body. He has not played 82 games since 2012-13 and has failed to reach 70 games in four of the past five seasons. Of course, 60 parts of Butler, it's better than nothing, but that must be a concern.
Although Butler is great and makes the Sixers better immediately, it has many long-term risks.
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