Jimmy Butler Trade Rumors: Atlanta Hawks Labeled As A "Surprise Landing Spot" For the Miami Heat Superstar

The NBA Trade Deadline is getting closer and is now less than two weeks away. The No. 1 player that is being discuessed leading up to the trade deadline is Heat forward Jimmy Butler. Butler has made it no secret that he would like to be traded from Miami and the team that has been mentioned the most frequently as a landing spot has been the Phoenix Suns. It would be complicated for it to happen, but there is a path for Butler to be traded to Phoenix given their recent moves to acquire more draft capital.

Could there be a surprise landing spot for Butler though?

There have been major trades that have happened in the NBA where a team swoopes in out of nowhere and lands a star player. It seemed like Damian Lillard was all but set to join the Miami Heat in the 2023 offseason, but the Milwaukee Bucks emerged suddenly and traded for the superstar point guard. Could something similar happen here?

When listing surprise landing spots for the top trade targets in the NBA, Bleacher Report's Dan Favale listed the Hawks as a potential team for Jimmy Butler:

"Many continue to have Jimmy Butler ticketed for the Phoenix Suns after they parlayed their 2031 first-rounder into three more imminent (less-favorable) first-round selections. What if the Atlanta Hawks come swooping in with their own offer?

"Dispense with the "Jimmy Butler will decline his player option and leave!" rebukes. Atlanta is a sleeper locale when it comes to talent retention. The Hawks, in fact, may be more hesitant to fan this flame than Butler.

Atlanta needs another primary creator aside from Trae Young. Jalen Johnson, Dyson Daniels and Bogdan Bogdanović are more secondary-types, and Kobe Bufkin is both injured and lacks a concrete ceiling. You can also never have too much defense around Young.

Any addition would ideally have more outside gravity than Butler. The Hawks have enough talent to figure it out. They can finagle packages that allow them to keep one of Bogdanović or De'Andre Hunter and won't need to include Daniels or Zaccharie Risacher.

Plus, with its next three picks controlled by San Antonio, Atlanta has some incentive to shop this year's Sacramento (top-12 protection) and Los Angeles Lakers picks for an immediate boost."

Our own Rohan Raman recently wrote about why the Hawks should not be involved in the Jimmy Butler sweepstakes:

Reason 1 - The Hawks do not have the salary cap space to do this responsibly.

"This is the biggest reason why Butler won't be traded to Atlanta. Based on current information and historical precedent, the Hawks are not going to enter the luxury tax this year. They have only paid the luxury tax in two seasons - ever - and this would be a pretty strange year to enter it. Therefore, Atlanta must stay below the luxury tax threshold of $170.8 million dollars. The Hawks are currently 3.1 million dollars under the tax. To get Butler without clearing the luxury tax threshold and adding a third team, the deal could be realistically constructed in a few different ways to make the salary work. The Hawks aren't trading either of Trae Young or Jalen Johnson. Clint Capela/Onyeka Okongwu wouldn't fit with Miami's roster due to already having Adebayo and Ke'el Ware. Therefore, here are some other options.

Reason 2 - Do the Hawks need Butler's skillset at his price?

Jimmy Butler is a star who does a lot of helpful things on a basketball court. However, it's fair to wonder whether he's the right star to give up two vital bench pieces and two first-round picks for before then signing him to a new contract. The Hawks have an elite passer already in Trae Young and are one of the best rebounding teams in basketball (5th in rebounds per game). They really need more shooting, a backup forward, and a backup point guard.

Jimmy would take some defensive attention away from Johnson and Young while his cutting would be a very seamless fit with Young's prodigious playmaking abilities. The problem is that there's a lot of redundant skillsets. Johnson and Butler both primarily operate in the paint/midrange while Young's numbers from deep have been below-average all year (33.5% on eight attempts a night). Johnson is a somewhat respectable shooter from deep (33.1% on 4.2 attempts), but he's not a true stretch forward yet. Butler really isn't much of a shooter from deep in the regular season and while those numbers do improve in the post-season, it's not a big enough difference to warrant the problems it could cause on offense for most of the year. There would have to be a pretty big alteration in roles/playstyle from one or more of these three players to make things work. While this trio is certainly talented on paper, the on-court fit just doesn't seem as clean as the names would suggest.

Reason 3 - Is Butler even going to play enough games to make this worth it?

Butler is hardly an ironman and there's little reason to think things would get better as he continues to age. He's a safe bet to miss around 20 games a year since he hasn't broken the 70-game mark since his days as a Chicago Bull. At best, the Hawks can expect to get between 55-60 games of him a year and that number could drop further as he gets older. If the deal is a rental, then it's less of a concern. However, if Atlanta is serious about signing him to a new deal, then it's something they need to consider. It doesn't even really make sense to acquire Butler as a rental due to the price, so the Hawks front office needs to have a very good plan for keeping all three of their stars healthy if they were to acquire Butler.

The one counter-argument to this is that each star can play less as long as two of three are in every game. However, I'd question that approach given how it's worked for the 76ers this year. They went into the season with that same mindset after getting Paul George on a supermax deal and it's not worked at all. Each of their stars - Joel Embiid, Tyrese Maxey and George - has missed a significant chunk of time. Atlanta would be betting on injury luck in a similar fashion. Granted, neither of Butler, Young or Johnson have the injury history of Embiid/George, but betting heavily on health can always take a drastic turn for the worse."

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