Minnesota does not buy what Houston sells for Jimmy Butler

A week after Miami Heat's team president, Pat Riley, put an end to negotiations when coach and Minnesota Timberwolves' team president, Tom Thibodeau, had asked for more than Josh Richardson and a protected first-round pick. Houston Rockets' first-round pick and pay ceiling filler, according to Shams Charania of The Athletic.

<p class = "canvas-atom canvas-text Mb (1.0em) Mb (0) – sm Mt (0.8em) – sm" type = "text" content = "The offer, by multiple reports, based on Houston's first-round picks in 2019, 2021, 2023, and 2025. This is the maximum number of choices allowed in an NBA rule that prohibits teams from trading players from the first round two consecutive seasons or beyond seven years. Teams also can not place protections on the peaks that prevent them from transmitting every two years. Marquese Chriss and Brandon Knight would be used to match Butler's salary in the deal once they became eligible for the trade on Oct. 31. "Data-reactid =" 25 "> The offer, by multiple reports, based on Houston's first-round picks in 2019, 2021, 2023, and 2025. This is the maximum number of choices allowed in an NBA rule that prohibits teams from trading players from the first round two consecutive seasons or beyond seven years. Teams can not place protection on peaks that prevent them from transmitting every two years. Marquese Chriss and Brandon Knight would be used to match Butler's salary in the deal once they became eligible for the trade on Oct. 31.

Why would not the Wolves make this agreement?

The league has not seen many choices changing hands since the Brooklyn Nets gave the first three unprotected players and an exchange of first-round picks at the Boston Celtics against their previous friends Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce and Jason Terry. The story has not been tender for the Nets, whose aging core has failed, the Celtics have recovered Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum, among other assets.

The worry for the Wolves is that Houston's choices may never fall so high in the draft. While Garnett, Pierce and Terry were all in their late twenties after the acquisition of the Nets, Butler and Rockets stars will not be 30 until next year, and Houston's Clint Capela, no. is only 24 years old. With Rockets midfielder Chris Paul approaching his mid-30s, Houston has all the key pieces of a team that almost reached the NBA finals last season at least 2022. If they were to acquire and sign new butler, this group all except that the 2019 and 2021 choices fall late in the first round.

We also do not know what kind of protection Houston general manager, Daryl Morey, plans to put on these selections. The protections can not create the possibility that the selections fall several consecutive years. Therefore: a) the selection can not be transmitted at all, b) it can become an exchange of selections or c) it becomes a second round. None of these options are as attractive as one of the choices that Boston has landed in Brooklyn.

Chriss was a lottery choice just two years ago, but it has not yet shown signs of reaching the potential that so many people have seen before in its raw athletics. Knight, 26, was considered a Milwaukee Bucks star player in 2014-2015, before being traded mid-season. He has since suffered a series of injuries that have left him struggling to be considered more than a contract expiring in 2020.

So while the basis of the exchange between Houston and him – four first-round picks and a pair of once-promising players who have probably not yet reached their peak – is sexy at first glance, the Wolves see two injured players and four choices that may never come to fruition, which does nothing to help them in their near-term efforts to build around Karl-Anthony Towns in a team that has participated in the playoffs l & rsquo; Last year.

Will Minnesota ever have a better deal?

Richardson, the 25-year-old emerging bi-directional wing that was the centerpiece of Miami's bid, is a safer bet to help the Wolves now, and he would have come up with only one protected first-round pick. No offer is close to the same value for Butler, an All-NBA-like talent at its peak, but no one is bidding just for a guy who wants to come out of Minnesota and who will become a free agent at the end of the season.

The only advantage the Wolves have over Houston and Miami is the fact that neither team has enough space to absorb Butler in July. This transaction is the only chance for one of the two teams to reach the All Star. Butler would make Miami fall in the eastern elite or make Houston an even greater threat to the Golden State Warriors. Minnesota may be trying to play one against the other, but Riley and Morey are smart enough to set limits to a fierce war for a guy who has disturbed locker rooms wherever he is.

The story continues