Happy New Year, everyone, and what a joyous time it is. From coast to coast, things couldn’t be better.
Start with the Miami Heat in one corner of the NBA map. As the Heat, one of the league’s proudest and most successful organizations, trade barbs with Jimmy Butler, they also are foundering. On the first day of Butler’s seven-games-unless-we-can-get-you-out-of-here-sooner suspension, Miami lost at home to the Utah Jazz by 36 points, a feat previously thought impossible.
More notable is the team’s big picture: Miami is mired at 17-16, is $15 million over the luxury tax line and already owes first-round picks in 2025 and 2027 that can each become unprotected a year later.
On the other side of the country, you have a Phoenix Suns team that has so impressively painted itself into a corner that it cannot even legally execute a trade for Butler without the approval of its least valuable player, even though Butler reportedly identified the Suns as one of his targeted teams.
A lethargic Phoenix squad lost to the Indiana Pacers 126-108 on Saturday, appearing to give up at times in the second half, for its seventh defeat in eight games. Despite the league’s highest payroll and having already hocked any draft pick that wasn’t nailed down (some of them more than once), the Suns fell 15-18 on the season. It’s possible they won’t even make the Play-In Tournament.
It’s not just the Heat and Suns who are ironically in winters of discontent. You can find pockets of misery everywhere. Welcome to 2025 — the year it all hits the fan. Jimmy Butler is our opening act, but please, stay for the entire show.
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Jimmy Butler trade scenarios: Which potential landing spots make the most sense?
Most of today’s woes point back to the same root cause. Remember all that fun everyone had trading unprotected draft picks to get guys and then locking up big contracts to tie their hands with payroll aprons and luxury tax bills? Well, it worked like gangbusters for Cleveland.
In Miami’s case, it snuck up on us, partly because we’ve been giving this organization the benefit of the doubt for so long. (With good reason, I might add.) Miami missed its moment to trade Butler when things started going sideways a year ago, and instead, the situation has festered to the point that he likely never plays another game for the Heat.
Now they’re hitting the worst trade market for a star player in memory. Between apron restrictions, Butler’s age and a looming player option, it’s difficult to find a single team that would willingly sign off on the type of deal — expiring contracts with some draft capital sprinkled on top — that would make it beneficial for Miami. At 35, Butler has a $52 million player option for next season but is no longer a $52 million player, even in the two-thirds of the regular season that he actually plays. On the flip side, if he declines the option, he’s a rental, and who is paying up for that?
What makes the situation so much worse for the Heat, and ties their hands even more on potential trade returns, is all the other mistakes. The Heat’s cap situation is bad enough that they can’t have functional cap room even if Butler opts out of the $52 million and walks, and they’re basically forced to take back less money in any trade because they’re so deep in the tax.
Trading a future first-rounder for Terry Rozier, an alleged scorer who is on the books for $26.6 million next season and has eclipsed the 20-point mark in one contest this season, has been an abject disaster. (Only $24.9 million of Rozier’s deal is guaranteed, so … yay?) Duncan Robinson hasn’t provided value on his $19-million-a-year deal. And looming in the distance, a three-year, $165 million extension for Bam Adebayo is starting to look dodgy too — it doesn’t even kick in until 2026 — unless the plan was to have him shoot midrange jumpers on every trip and make two of every five.
As for Butler, trading him to Phoenix for Bradley Beal and the Suns’ 2031 unprotected first (which they somehow haven’t gotten around to trading yet) is the only way for Phoenix to acquire him, but Beal has a no-trade clause. The other, bigger problem is that Beal has the worst contract in the league and the Heat don’t want him. Nor does anyone else, not if it involves paying him $111 million for the two years after this one.
As a result, I can come up with exactly one Butler trade that makes some sense: that is to send him and Kevin Love to Sacramento for DeRozan, Trey Lyles and Kevin Huerter. Straight up, no picks. Everyone saves face: The Heat can still compete, get some cap relief and don’t have existential worries about free agency this coming summer, and the Kings can bail on the DeRozan experiment at 99 cents on the dollar and sell De’Aaron Fox on the fact they’re trying to get better. The money lines up, too.
Unfortunately, that’s probably not a deal the Kings are doing tomorrow. Maybe on deadline day, after they’ve run out ground balls on all their other options, but not in early January. It’s a complication with virtually any other potential partner, too — Butler might be one option, but I don’t think he’s the first option for anyone. Or even second or third.
That’s why I have a hard time seeing an immediate trade. The Heat already canvassed the market, remember, and then eight days before the current mess blew up, they announced they weren’t trading him. That didn’t happen because they were overwhelmed with lucrative offers. Teams may circle back to the Heat closer to the Feb. 6 deadline if other plays don’t come to fruition or their desperation increases (see below for some candidates), but Miami may be stuck with its Jimmy Butler problem for a while.
And yet … if the Heat could have a positive motto for the rest of the year, it might be: “At least we’re not Phoenix.”
Forget the wins and losses: How is a team with Kevin Durant this boring? The Suns just kind of slowly dribble up the court and then meander with the ball until either Durant or Devin Booker shoots a jump shot. They are the platonic ideal of a team for people who complain that the NBA is all 3s, leading the NBA by a wide margin in shots from 10 to 16 feet.
Sorry, folks, but this is the basketball that’s hard to watch. Phoenix is 29th in dunks, last in layups and last by a mile in shots at the rim (just 14.8 percent of attempts). In addition to the 25th-ranked defense, the Suns are also shortchanging their offensive talent by failing basketball math.
Every sentient basketball fan over the age of 5 knew the Suns were going to face a long, dark winter as a result of their hyper-aggressive trades of the past two years. However, most expected there would be some winning first. Alas, the spring of 2023 might go down as the first and last time we see the Durant Suns win a playoff game.
Acquiring Durant at almost any price is defensible, but the Beal trade is rapidly looking like one of the worst moves in recent NBA annals. Phoenix gave up four pick swaps, six second-round picks and Chris Paul to take on a horrific contract and couldn’t even get Beal’s no-trade clause removed as part of the deal.
The Suns did this even though they had all the leverage, as Beal has the power to choose Phoenix as his destination. The amazing part is that they included Paul in the deal, too, because they thought he was washed. Paul is 39, makes one-fifth as much as Beal and is not only a better player, but the exact type of player the Suns need.
Up front, Phoenix is also notably deficient, which partly explains the reliance on jumpers. Jusuf Nurkić has declined dramatically, Mason Plumlee has lost some athletic pop in the paint but remains just as willing to dribble five times between his legs on the perimeter, and the “play Durant at center” adjustment aquifer only holds about five minutes.
Of late, the Suns have also seemed spiritless. Um, anybody want to get this rebound? Bueller? Anyone?
Yikes pic.twitter.com/72HjDA61WN
— Doug Haller (@DougHaller) January 5, 2025
The Suns don’t seem to realize it yet, but their only way out of this is going to be trading Booker and Durant and getting some of their picks back so they can pivot to an extended tank-and-rebuild. It’s just a matter of whether they decide to pull the plug, or one of the two stars forces it by demanding a trade.
So yes, the New Year’s hangover is definitely hitting hardest in Phoenix and Miami, but it’s being felt elsewhere, too. Let’s check in on how it’s going for everyone else:
Timberwolves
Minnesota, which controls one of its own first-round picks between now and 2031 and is $32.9 million over the tax line, fell to 17-17 with a loss in Detroit on Saturday. The Wolves are in danger of missing the playoffs in the cutthroat West and handing a lottery pick to Utah.
Minnesota, if you’ll recall, gave up five first-rounders and a swap to acquire Rudy Gobert in 2022; he’s now 32 and signed for three more expensive years after this season, while his level of play has declined significantly after winning Defensive Player of the Year in 2024. Will the return on this deal be one conference finals trip?
GO DEEPER
Chris Finch backs struggling Wolves starters, says there are no plans to change course
Bucks
The Bucks, who do not control any of their own first-round picks until 2031 and are $22 million over the tax line, lost consecutive home games to the Brooklyn Nets and Portland Trail Blazers this past week to fall to 17-16.
I know what you’re going to say: NBA Cup flags fly forever, buddy. More seriously, some of that outgoing draft capital went to secure Jrue Holiday, the key to the Bucks’ 2021 title run.
More recently, one can argue the decision to trade for Damian Lillard — giving up Holiday, Grayson Allen, an unprotected first-rounder and two swaps — was already justified when Giannis Antetokounmpo extended his contract shortly after.
But Giannis is all they have going for them, and history doesn’t change the cold facts of Milwaukee’s present: The Bucks are an old, expensive team with a bare young talent cupboard.
Clippers
The Clippers, who just returned Kawhi Leonard to the lineup after a 34-game absence, still aren’t exactly in great long-term shape either. They’re largely out of tax/apron hell but still face the same basic issues as the Bucks: They’re an old team with near-zero young talent, and between picks and swaps, they don’t control their own first-round pick until 2030. They’re also watching Shai Gilgeous-Alexander contend for the MVP award with a team that has won 15 straight*, the same team that will be swapping picks with them in 2025 and 2027.
(* — I know … the NBA Cup final. But that doesn’t count toward the standings, so they’re calling it 15 straight.)
Bulls, Lakers, Hawks, 76ers
• The Chicago Bulls aren’t in the tax but are 16-19 and likely figuring out how to make themselves a bit worse to keep a top-10 protected pick they sent out to acquire DeMar DeRozan, having already fired two lottery picks and a younger starting center into the sun to acquire Nikola Vučević.
• The Los Angeles Lakers, theoretically looking OK at 20-15, have managed to resist the lure of going all-in for the wrong player ever since the Russell Westbrook disaster. Still, things aren’t great, not when you consider the age of their two key players, the picks they still owe in 2025 and 2027 and the fact their record flatters a team that has been outscored on the season despite being mostly healthy.
• The Atlanta Hawks still teeters on the brink of disaster from its own failed “all-in” trade for Dejounte Murray, owing unprotected picks in 2025 and 2027 to the San Antonio Spurs. While they at least got their money back on Murray by stealing Dyson Daniels and getting two first-round picks back from New Orleans, it remains highly plausible the Hawks end up forking out two high lottery picks for two years of not much with Murray.
• Philadelphia is 14-19, contractually obligated to Joel Embiid’s and Paul George’s wobbly knees for four and three more years, respectively, and could be sending a juicy first-round pick to Oklahoma City this year in a loaded draft if the Sixers can’t zip past a few Eastern Conference lightweights and land in the top eight. (Philly owes the Thunder a top-six protected pick, as a consequence of salary-dumping Al Horford.)
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So what’s the big takeaway? One might look at all this, and the rash of previous draft-pick trades that will finally pay out in 2025 and the years that follow, and conclude that teams are going to pull back on “all-in” type trades with multiple unprotected picks.
I kind of doubt it, though. For starters, there’s the glaring counterexample in Cleveland. The Cavs dealt three firsts, two swaps and an eventual All-Star in Lauri Markkanen just to get Donovan Mitchell and couldn’t possibly feel better about it. The key, in the Cavs’ case, was that they pushed their chips in at the time it would have maximal impact because they already had three key pieces in place in Darius Garland, Jarrett Allen and Evan Mobley.
But more importantly, even the best-run organizations have a hard time resisting the urge to overpay — sometimes, wildly — when a key piece becomes available. Scarcity begets silliness, and it will probably take a truly disastrous outcome (like if a team ends up trading a pick that becomes Cooper Flagg or A.J. Dybantsa in the next two drafts) to rein in teams’ most aggressive instincts.
In the meantime, load up on aspirin. Teams partied hard with their draft picks the last few years, and in 2025, the hangover is going to hit like a jackhammer.
Illinois’ Kasparas Jakučionis drives to the basket as Tennessee’s Chaz Lanier defends. (Ron Johnson / Imagn Images)
Prospect of the Week: Kasparas Jakučionis, 6-6 Fr. SG, Illinois
(Note: This section won’t necessarily profile the best prospect of the week. Just the one I’ve been watching.)
I caught Illinois’ game against Washington in Seattle this weekend and got eyes on Kasparas Jakučionis in person for the first time since the 2024 Nike Hoop Summit.
Jakučionis was measured at 6-foot-4 at that April event, where he failed to make a major impression, but Illinois lists him at 6-6. While that latter height is scarcely believable, it’s possible he’s grown enough to just get over the 6-4 1/2 hump and be listed at 6-5.
As for his play, Jakučionis has taken over the reins of one of the best teams in the country, scoring 18 points and adding six assists and five boards in the 22nd-ranked Illini’s 81-77 win over Washington. He’s leading the team in points, assists and usage and is a close second in PER and BPM.
On Sunday, it didn’t take long to see why — he’s completely comfortable running the show and operates with a poise beyond his years. I’ll also note he’s more comfortable at the point but is big enough to play either guard spot as a pro. He displayed a solid handle with either hand, excellent passing instincts and situational command and good footwork getting into 3-pointers off the dribble.
Half his shots this year have been 3s, and Jakučionis entered Sunday at 42.9 percent from downtown and 86.8 percent from the line. When he decides he wants to let one rip, he’s going to navigate on the perimeter until he can let it fly. Like this:
Kasparas Jakucionis is a cheat code
#NBAdraft #Illini[image or embed]
— Hoop Informatics (@hoopinformatics.bsky.social) January 5, 2025 at 4:13 PM
Jakučionis also scored the game’s go-ahead basket with 30 seconds left on a driving left-hand layup, and throughout the night, he was able to touch the paint when he worked in ball screens. On an island, he tends to favor stepback jumpers as per above.
While he doesn’t grade out as an elite athlete, Jakučionis showed enough defensively that I wouldn’t get overly worried. He has solid rates of steals and rebounds and was able to slide his feet against Washington’s guards when challenged; he also had a great verticality play in transition and a couple of other situational reads you don’t always see from freshmen.
Where scouts will still want to see improvement is in his shoot/pass decision-making and turnovers. Jakučionis missed out on multiple clear scoring opportunities Sunday, either by passing up open shots or by turning down driving lanes to make kickout passes to guys who weren’t really all that open.
The overpassing is one thing that gets him in trouble — Jakučionis threw some tremendous dimes in this one, especially an inch-perfect look-away transition hit-ahead to generate a layup — but it also leads to too many turnovers. He entered Sunday with 6.5 miscues per 100 possessions — that’s a lot, no matter what’s on your plate — and had three more against the Huskies.
The other piece of this is that his shoot-pass decisions can look pre-planned at times, rather than reading the game. There were several moments where it was clear Jakučionis decided it was his time to score; to his credit, he got to work, and at 66.1 percent true shooting, he’s effective when he decides to get buckets. Yet, at other times, that part of his wiring seems completely turned off.
We have a long Big Ten season to continue evaluating Jakučionis, who also has a marquee game in New York against Duke next month. He has his warts if you stare long enough, especially since he isn’t a freak athlete. But if I had to rank everyone today, I would give him a solid lottery grade.
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(Photo of Kevin Durant and Jimmy Butler: Issac Baldizon / NBAE via Getty Images)
