You can't claim Butler is a superstar above criticism while at the same time arguing his price should be cheap.
WHO IS CLAIMING THAT?
Mike
To get back to seriousness. I do think Butler can be a superstar.
...
Maybe they really do pick Hoiberg over Butler...
Yeah it totally makes sense to choose a coach over a budding superstar.
You neatly edited out the rest of my post where I said it was possible because their front office is so incredibly dysfunctional. If you don't get how the front office is dysfunctional and has made a ton of stupid moves in the last decade I don't really know where to start.
Also dude, editing my quotes around from a post to remove the meaning is pretty crappy. It is one thing to misunderstand what someone was says, but intentionally manipulating their posts to make them say something else is kind of crappy, even for you.
i didn't edit your post. I highlighted the only relevant bits. That you think butler can be a superstar and you think the Bulls might pick a coach over him. Dysfunctional or not, that's a comical premise.
Butler likely isn't going to be a superstar. If you believe the Bulls will trade him for picks, it must mean the Bulls don't think he will be a superstar either.
He's still a nice player who could help. I'd be fine with adding him at the right price.
Just like if anyone believes the Kings will trade DMC for picks, it must mean Sacramento doesn't think he is good enough to build a team around.
cousins hasn't been traded for picks. There's been no sign they are open to trading him for picks. There are no rumors that he will be traded for picks. And it's believed that cousins has considerable baggage. As far as I know, butler doesn't have any major baggage and isn't demanding a trade - so it would be interesting if the Bulls dumped him. But of course, butler is merely a borderline star - it's totally plausible he'd he traded. They will ask for a lot despite this. I'm not sure the price will make sense for us.
Butler is a bordeline star?
Are you honestly serious? You talk about Jahlil Okafor like he's the second coming of god, and you refer to Jimmy Butler as a 'borderline star'
Come on man - I generally respect the comments you make, but this is simply insane.
Butler is a 21 / 5 / 5 guy and an elite defender. He his game has no real glaring weaknesses, and his personality is a coach's dream. He is arguably the best shooting guard in the entire NBA, and at 26 years of age he still has potential to get better.
I must admit, I am completely bewildered as to how you could refer to Butler as a 'borderline star'.
When did I talk about Okafor as the second coming of God? Lol. If you hate Okafor, take that up with Danny ainge - who per several reports came close to landing Okafor at the deadline for a package built around the pick. Presumably butler had cost and will cost significantly more than that. It sounds like we made inquires and the price was too high.
And yeah, butler is a borderline star. He's maybe a notch above Thomas. Take those two guys and pair them with a big man DPOY candidate like Noah in his prime and you'll probably make the second round.
Here's the thing with butler - at minimum he's costing you all our picks, right? Do you think he'd also cost crowder or Bradley ?
Someone made the comment earlier that butler can become a superstar. Eh. I doubt it. Someone made the comment that if you add butler without impacting our core, the team would threaten for the finals. I don't buy it, but let's talk about it.
Let's pretend that the Bulls are so convinced in Butler's inability to be a franchise player that they actually decide to trade butler for our picks. Add butler to our starting lineup. Whose minutes is he taking? Who gets the short straw on minutes now? Does he start next to crowder and Thomas with Bradley on the bench taking smarts minutes ? Is he starting over Crowder? Are we just replacing turners minutes ? Someone is getting minutes eaten. It will be an upgrade for sure, but if we are talking about just swapping our crowder or Bradley for butler is it really going to be a big enough upgrade to take this mediocre team to a championship? Nah. So if we are paying big time prices to bring in butler we better be certain of our free agency potential. We'd need to have follow up moves to make it worthwhile.
Hence why I say I'm not comfortable going all-in for butler unless is guarantees us Durant. Id prefer the alternative of using the pick to take another big time prospect, keeping Bradley and crowder, and hoping a better option presents itself.
This is a fairly reasonable position, unlike your nonsense from earlier comparing Butler to Ricky Davis. That was total hogwash.
That only upset people because butler is overrated and Davis was underrated. It's the same reason people get all salty when Zach Lowe and Bill Simmons say Marcus smart might someday be as good as tony Allen... Or when someone in the media suggests Crowder is the modern James Posey. Nobody wants a ceiling placed on their future - especially by using underrated ghosts from their past.
And anyways, the fact that Davis has almost identical career stats to butler and had a similar statistical peak doesn't mean that butler can't continue to play at a high level. We don't know how butler would play on a brad Stevens Celtic team. We don't know how Ricky Davis would have played on a tom thib elite defensive team. We don't know what butlers advanced stats would have looked like on a bottom feeder early 00s Celtics squad. It doesn't matter. Mostly, it's just funny how similar the stats are. I think people reacted hostile to the comments because butler is a binkie. I thought only Celtic players could be binkies around here but apparently butler is so desirable he gets the same defense mechanism. So when someone points out butler has the same stats as Davis, it's the equivalent of your granny telling you you're starting to look so much like you dad as you get older - which really makes you angry, because you think your dad is a fat deadbeat and granny is losing her marbles. But mostly it just upsets you because when you look in the mirror, you realize granny might be right. In this example, I'm granny losing her marbles.
No people called you out for it, because Ricky Davis was not nearly as good as Jimmy Butler was. It was a garbage comparison. And the stats are skewed because Butler was slow to develop. Davis averaged 20 ppg one time (the seasons on either side of that 20 were under 12 and under 14.5 ppg) and his eFG% in that one season was 43.5%. Butler has gone back to back seasons at 20 or more ppg and his eFG% was respectively 50.2% and 48.5%. Butler has shown a consistent trend of improvement. Butler is a significantly better defender than Davis ever was. This is borne out statistically, via honors, and via anyone that watches either of them play basketball. (For example, Davis career best PER was 16.1, Butler's last two seasons are each 21.3 - Davis ORTG 102, DRTG 109 - Butler ORTG 116, DRTG 104 - VORP Davis 6.5, Butler 13 - BPM Davis -0.8, Butler 3.1 - and on and on and on).
It was and always will be a stupid comparison and it is why you lost people from your underlying argument that you don't want to overpay for Butler because he isn't a franchise player (I firmly agree with that part - Butler is not a franchise player). That is a fair conclusion to make, but basing it off of a nonsense comparison is hogwash and is quite frankly stupid.
Bold comments. You say he was slow to develop. That might be partially true. It also might have to do with surrounding talent and system. Who was getting the attention of defenses on that team. How that defense was structured. Who was coaching that team, etc. Like I said above, stick prime Ricky Davis with a 20/10 big man like Pau Gasol under a Tom Thib lead defense and maybe his stats (which were about even with Butler) aren't as empty.
Also, when people quote advanced stats, do they actually understand what those advanced stats are showing? If Butler's on a team loaded with talent that wins, isn't it obvious he'd have favorable advance stats that factor in win percentage? If Butler's backup is weak while Ricky Davis' backup is 3-time first team all-defense Tony Allen, isn't it a given that his +/- stats would be impacted?
Too often people gloss over system and surrounding talent when considering players. We saw BUtler's FG% jump from 39%/26% with the arrival of beast-mode Pau Gasol. You can call it development and I'm sure in a lot of ways it is. But having watched the game of basketball for a long time and seen how a guy like Paul Pierce could go from shooting 40%/29% in the down years like 2004 to 49%/38% alongside Kevin Garnett, I take these things into consideration when looking at a borderline star like Jimmy Butler - especially when he's coming off a season where his field goal percentages dropped across the board, his team failed to make the playoffs, his defense supposedly slipped, and the team is actually considering trading him away in a year where shaving cap space is as low-priority as it's ever been.
Also, part of the reason people hate RIcky Davis is because he was a bit of a headcase. Jimmy Butler speaks in the third person. There's been several articles written about his colossal ego. Who knows how he'd be seen if he was playing on a lotto squad. I mean... he IS playing on a lotto squad and the team IS supposedly interested in trading him. So, there's that.