How the Charlotte Hornets are positioned to be key trade facilitator in potential Suns-Heat Jimmy Butler deal

How can Charlotte help Jimmy Butler land in Phoenix?

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Former Carolina Panthers general manager Scott Fitterer once famously promised to be "in on every deal.” That comment was meme'd into oblivion upon his unceremonious firing, because if he truly was in on every deal, the Panthers may have found more success in his tenure. 

An executive that actually seems to be in on every deal is Charlotte Hornets’ President of Basketball Operations Jeff Peterson. The first-year shot caller has swung a handful of trades to upgrade Charlotte’s current roster and maximize its future draft capital in his quest to build a long-term winner in the Queen City. 

In two of those deals, the historic six-team summer trade that landed Josh Green in Charlotte, and the preseason Karl Anthony-Towns blockbuster that the Hornets became involved in to make the salaries work, Peterson flaunted the Hornets' cap flexibility as a tool to facilitate trades between contenders and land some of those aforementioned roster upgrades and future assets in Uptown. 

The Jimmy Butler trade drama continues to drag on, but a recent move by the Phoenix Suns seems like a precursor to the saga’s end. The Suns flipped a future 2031 first-round pick into three firsts from Utah, and they are now flushed with a trio of premium draft selections that can be sent to Miami, or elsewhere, in a deal centered around Butler. 

However, salaries need to be exchanged, and the albatross contract of Bradley Beal needs to be moved in the deal. 

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If, and those two letters are doing some heavy lifting, the deal expands beyond Miami and Phoenix to include some more dance partners (Milwaukee is a potential destination for Beal), Peterson could be poised to work his magic yet again. 

It gets complicated, but there are machinations of a four-way deal between Charlotte, Phoenix, Milwaukee, and Miami that works out financially. The NBA’s collective bargaining agreement make it supremely difficult for teams in the second apron to make trades, but some cap gymnastics involving Charlotte’s $6.5 million disabled player exception make the Hornets an ideal candidate to facilitate this deal, or any, involving Jimmy Butler and Bradley Beal.

It’s impossible to know what kind of picks would come to Charlotte for helping these two contenders swap their expensive stars, but the Hornets would be compensated fairly to help the league’s elite make moves. 

ESPN's Shams Charania detailed that a potential Jimmy Butler trade could involve "three, four, or five potential teams," and Yahoo's Vince Goodwill annotated that both "Detroit and Charlotte could operate as facilitators for a large deal."

Jimmy Butler is going to be moved before February 6th. His relentless antics and Phoenix's championship aspirations make them ideal dance partners for a deal, but they're going to need help, and the Charlotte Hornets have built a life raft to toss into the fray.

Between the $6.5 million DPE that Charlotte can absorb a contract into, Cody Martin, Josh Green, Josh Okogie, and Vasilije Micic's movable salaries, and a staunch desire to hoard future assets to build around the long-term core of LaMelo Ball, Brandon Miller, and Mark Williams, Charlotte is uniquely situated to be a key player in this deadline as both a buyer and a seller. Buying picks and undesirable contracts, and selling valuable bench pieces as they somehow get richer by making the rich richer.

Talk about having your cake and eating it too.

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