Would you trade the #1 pick for Jimmy Butler?

[Clench123]

Not at all

[Stig]

It depends, if we already have another star in the team and we'd like to get a third one besides Butler, then I'd do it, for example if we have already signed Dwight Howard, and trying to chase Durant (i know i'm dreaming...), then I'll use the pick to get Butler.

Similar to Cleveland trade Andrew Wiggins pick for Kevin Love. I consider Butler the same level as Love.

I'd definitely trade no.2 pick for him though.

[slamtheking]

Looking downrange, we'd have to ask ourselves these questions, I think:

1. By landing Simmons, is Simmons ALONE (with the team AS IS) - good enough to get us out
    of the Eastern Conference next year? Is he REALLY going to be as good as Lebron James was
    in his FIRST year?

2. By Landing Simmons, is SIMMONS ALONE enough to draw a top FA here next year? Just on
    his POTENTIAL alone?

3. By landing SIMMONS (and making NO OTHER moves) - how far are we going to go with him
    and how long are we willing to wait for his development?

With those questions in "my" mind, I'd welcome Simmons to BOS then promptly ship him to CHI
for Jimmy B.

thing is, that's very short term thinking.  Simmons is much cheaper and cost controlled for 5 years.  C's don't need to be in contention next year if that means Simmons needs 2-3 years to become the franchise player people hope he'll become. 

As someone else mentioned, Butler is an all-star and worth quite a bit in a trade package but for the #1 pick in this year's draft, he's not worth that much.  I haven't seen a lot of Simmons but from what I've seen, he reminds me a bit of Magic on the fast break.

besides, Chicago wouldn't move Butler in the middle of the season. 

[Monkhouse]

I think honestly, you say no.

The Cavs faced a similar scenario. Love was the player most coveted, and the Cavs snatched it with the lucky first round pick. Wiggins is a valuable player, transcendental? Who knows?

But if you got the first pick, then you definitely do not trade for Butler. The Cavs went with Love to contend immediately with Lebron and Kyrie.

Butler doesn't win us a championship, but he certainly could draw in free agents possibly hoping to join him. But Butler isn't Lebron, and we don't have a Kyrie; nor a Love neither.

[TheFlex]

No. Would be very tempting, though.

[crimson_stallion]

Honestly, I think it's silly that people are mocking others for saying yes or for saying no to a teade like this.

I think it's a very close call, and regardless of whether you say yes or no, I think either decision is easily justifiable.

One one hand, people are talking about Simmons as if he has the potential to be a future franchise player - I'm talking Durant / Lebron / Anthony Davis potential. 

If he genuinely has the potential to be that good, then it's hard to give that up for a guy like Butler who is a very nice player, but probably not good enough to transform you into a contender on his own.

The way I see it, if you get a guy like Simmons and he has the type of first season that guys like Anthony Davis, Karl Anthony-Towns, Lebron and Durant had - then the future upside will be so obvious that a player of that caliber will immediately improve the likelihood of your team attractive big free agents. If you get a guy like that on a rookie deal for years on end, then you are in a position to easily sign two max contract players to play alongside him, and still have enough cap space left over to build a quality roster of support players around that core.  That's NBA team building gold right there.

On the other hand, every rookie (even #1 picks) come with risk.  Jabari Parker and Joel Embiid, for example, were considered by most people to be right up there with Andrew Wiggins in terms of their potential to become franchise players.  People compared Jabari to Melo, and Embiid to Hakeem.   Fast forward a full season and Jabari looks like a bust, while Embiid still hasn't played a single game.

So when you consider how good Butler is on both ends of the floor, and consider that he's only 26 years old, it's not at all unreasonable to make the decision to trade the pick and take the proven guy.

To me, the best way to look at it is this.  Here are the #1 picks of the past 10 years:

Karl Anthony Towns
Andrew Wiggins
Anthony Bennett
Anthony Davis
John Wall
Blake Griffin
Derrick Rose
Greg Oden
Andrea Bargnani
Andrew Bogut

Out of those 10 guys, here is a list of the ones who I feel i would take over Butler in terms of pure talent (i.e. guys who either were better than Butler at their peak, or guys who have the potential to be better than him):

Karl Anthony Towns
Andrew Wiggins
Anthony Davis
John Wall
Blake Griffin
Derrick Rose

That's 6 guys out of 10, so that suggests to me that if you do get the #1 pick your chance of getting a player that is as good as (or better than) Butler is higher than your chance of getting somebody who isn't, and hence I would keep the pick.

But it's certainly not an easy decision one way or the other.

[chambers]

Honestly, I think it's silly that people are mocking others for saying yes or for saying no to a teade like this.

I think it's a very close call, and regardless of whether you say yes or no, I think either decision is easily justifiable.

One one hand, people are talking about Simmons as if he has the potential to be a future franchise player - I'm talking Durant / Lebron / Anthony Davis potential. 

If he genuinely has the potential to be that good, then it's hard to give that up for a guy like Butler who is a very nice player, but probably not good enough to transform you into a contender on his own.

The way I see it, if you get a guy like Simmons and he has the type of first season that guys like Anthony Davis, Karl Anthony-Towns, Lebron and Durant had - then the future upside will be so obvious that a player of that caliber will immediately improve the likelihood of your team attractive big free agents. If you get a guy like that on a rookie deal for years on end, then you are in a position to easily sign two max contract players to play alongside him, and still have enough cap space left over to build a quality roster of support players around that core.  That's NBA team building gold right there.

On the other hand, every rookie (even #1 picks) come with risk.  Jabari Parker and Joel Embiid, for example, were considered by most people to be right up there with Andrew Wiggins in terms of their potential to become franchise players.  People compared Jabari to Melo, and Embiid to Hakeem.   Fast forward a full season and Jabari looks like a bust, while Embiid still hasn't played a single game.

So when you consider how good Butler is on both ends of the floor, and consider that he's only 26 years old, it's not at all unreasonable to make the decision to trade the pick and take the proven guy.

To me, the best way to look at it is this.  Here are the #1 picks of the past 10 years:

Karl Anthony Towns
Andrew Wiggins
Anthony Bennett
Anthony Davis
John Wall
Blake Griffin
Derrick Rose
Greg Oden
Andrea Bargnani
Andrew Bogut

Out of those 10 guys, here is a list of the ones who I feel i would take over Butler in terms of pure talent (i.e. guys who either were better than Butler at their peak, or guys who have the potential to be better than him):

Karl Anthony Towns
Andrew Wiggins
Anthony Davis
John Wall
Blake Griffin
Derrick Rose

That's 6 guys out of 10, so that suggests to me that if you do get the #1 pick your chance of getting a player that is as good as (or better than) Butler is higher than your chance of getting somebody who isn't, and hence I would keep the pick.

But it's certainly not an easy decision one way or the other.

Exactly Crim.
I think at first glance the majority of people would be quick to decline the #1 for Butler but in reality it would be a much harder decision for Danny for all the reasons you listed:
1) Proven All Star on both ends
2) is 25 years old
3) would help attract other major free agents way quicker than a rookie/sophomore/junior Simmons.

I think it's much closer than most think. I'm on the fence.
I think if I knew we could get another top 10-15 player here by getting Butler here, then I'd have to think veeeerrryyy hard about the potential of Simmons vs having two top 15 players and a genius young coach and the perfect set of defensive role players around them right now....

Interesting topic that's for sure.

[rocknrollforyoursoul]

Honestly, I think it's silly that people are mocking others for saying yes or for saying no to a teade like this.

I think it's a very close call, and regardless of whether you say yes or no, I think either decision is easily justifiable.

One one hand, people are talking about Simmons as if he has the potential to be a future franchise player - I'm talking Durant / Lebron / Anthony Davis potential. 

If he genuinely has the potential to be that good, then it's hard to give that up for a guy like Butler who is a very nice player, but probably not good enough to transform you into a contender on his own.

The way I see it, if you get a guy like Simmons and he has the type of first season that guys like Anthony Davis, Karl Anthony-Towns, Lebron and Durant had - then the future upside will be so obvious that a player of that caliber will immediately improve the likelihood of your team attractive big free agents. If you get a guy like that on a rookie deal for years on end, then you are in a position to easily sign two max contract players to play alongside him, and still have enough cap space left over to build a quality roster of support players around that core.  That's NBA team building gold right there.

On the other hand, every rookie (even #1 picks) come with risk.  Jabari Parker and Joel Embiid, for example, were considered by most people to be right up there with Andrew Wiggins in terms of their potential to become franchise players.  People compared Jabari to Melo, and Embiid to Hakeem.   Fast forward a full season and Jabari looks like a bust, while Embiid still hasn't played a single game.

So when you consider how good Butler is on both ends of the floor, and consider that he's only 26 years old, it's not at all unreasonable to make the decision to trade the pick and take the proven guy.

To me, the best way to look at it is this.  Here are the #1 picks of the past 10 years:

Karl Anthony Towns
Andrew Wiggins
Anthony Bennett
Anthony Davis
John Wall
Blake Griffin
Derrick Rose
Greg Oden
Andrea Bargnani
Andrew Bogut

Out of those 10 guys, here is a list of the ones who I feel i would take over Butler in terms of pure talent (i.e. guys who either were better than Butler at their peak, or guys who have the potential to be better than him):

Karl Anthony Towns
Andrew Wiggins
Anthony Davis
John Wall
Blake Griffin
Derrick Rose

That's 6 guys out of 10, so that suggests to me that if you do get the #1 pick your chance of getting a player that is as good as (or better than) Butler is higher than your chance of getting somebody who isn't, and hence I would keep the pick.

But it's certainly not an easy decision one way or the other.

TP. Best post I've seen on this thread.

Simmons could be as good as LeBron or Durant or Davis.

Or he could be a dud.

[KG Living Legend]

 Remember Danny said he's trade all players except for five in the NBA for Lebron before the draft. Simmons isn't in that level, but he's close enough that Danny's not trading Butler for a poor man's Lebron or Magic.

 The number two pick for Butler is a better question.

[crimson_stallion]

I think another great way to look at it is this...

Think back to the 2014 draft - the mock drafts were very undecided on who would go #1.  Between Wiggins, Embiid and Parker it really was impossible to know, they were so close.

Each of those top three picks, at the time, had incredibly high trade value because all were seen as having superstar potential.

Now if the Bulls offered the Sixers Jimmy Butler for the #3 pick, do you think they would have said yes?  How about the Bucks for Parker? How about the Cavs for Wiggins?

Honestly, I think all three of those would have been really long, hard decisions for the GM of each of those three teams.

Looking at those three situations now - would the Cavs be better off with Butler or Love?  Hard to say, but if they had Butler (who has been pretty healthy over his career) then they might have made things a LOT harder for Golden state in the finals last year - may even have a title.  Or maybe it would have made no difference.  In the end though Cleveland took a gamble on two guys who are known to be injury prone (Irving and Love) and lost.

The other two cases - Philly and Milwaukee - the end result is a no brainier.  Both teams would be INFINITELY better off right now if they had Butler rather than Embiid / Parker.  Well unless you count games won as a bad thing for Philly, which might well be the case haha

To be honest, at this point we don't even know if Wiggins is going to become better than Butler.  At this point he's still an incredibly one dimensional player - he's an elite athlete and an excellent scorer, but his rebounding (at 3.9 Reb Per 36) is embarassingly bad for a 6'8" guy, he's shown no play-making ability (1.8 Ast Per 36 / 0.78 Ast:To) and his defense (-3.51 DRPM, 2nd worst among all NBA SG) has been horrendous.  His percentages (43%/26%/76%) also suck so far. 

Right now Wiggins is looking like he might be a poor man's DeMarr Derozan (because Derozan is a much better defender and rebounder).

Butler is putting up similar offensive numbers but is rebounding better, passing better, defending FAR better, and putting up far more impressive shooting percentages.  Right now Butler is a better player than Wiggins - though of course Wiggins is only 20 years old and still has a LONG time to change that.

Just illustrating the point however that at this very moment, it's not really obvious that trading Wiggins for Butler would have been a bad move - it's not out of the question that Butler might be a better all round player than Wiggins ever becomes. 

So yeah, really tough call to me.

Honestly I've seen rumors about Boston trading for Dwight Howard / Demarcus Cousins (with the Nets pick being the main incentive) and even those are tough calls - and IMHO both of those players would add more positive impact to this team that Butler, simply because we are so desperate for a quality big man. 

[byennie]

Butler is a very good player - but he's not worth a cost-controlled top-3 pick while he's making $18-20M, even under the new cap (although that helps). Maybe if he was the final piece, but not when we're talking about having e.g. Simmons or Ingram on a rookie deal.

I'd use our quantity of assets for a guy like Butler, or make sure he's the final piece (at which point, maybe overpay a little for opportunity cost).

Something like:

Lee (immediate cap relief)
Hunter or Young or Rozier
1st rounder (our own)
future 1st rounder (Memphis?)

If they don't bite, no big deal. There are only so many teams that can offer all of those pieces at once, for a highly paid good-but-not-a-superstar player.

I would love to see this small ball lineup for sure:

Smart
Bradley
Butler
Crowder
Sullinger

Those guys would be a terror defensively and decent offensively with Butler being the #1 option for stretches.

The thing that worries me about Butler is that he's potentially a rich man's Crowder for twice the money. I'd say he's fair money under the new cap.

[crimson_stallion]

Remember Danny said he's trade all players except for five in the NBA for Lebron before the draft. Simmons isn't in that level, but he's close enough that Danny's not trading Butler for a poor man's Lebron or Magic.

 The number two pick for Butler is a better question.

To play devil's advocate, there IS the chance that this "poor man's Magic" ends up becoming Lamar Odom 2.0 - just saying!

Not that Odom wasn't a nice player, just that if you got offered Butler for Odom in his prime, you'd probably take it without too much hesitation.

To be honest I'm really intrigued by Karl Anthony-Towns. There haven't been that many big men in recent times who have put up the type of rookie year numbers he has this year on both ends of the court - the ones that have (Anthony Davis, Dwight Howard, Demarcus Copusins, etc) have tended to devleop into top 10 talents.

In fact, have we ever seen a rookie big man average 20 pts, 12 rebounds and 2.6 bklk Per 36 while also shooting 54%/46%/84% from the field?  That is just out of this world good. 

Kid has a very legit chance of being better than Anthony Davis, and that is nuts.

[Beat LA]

Ahahaha no.

[Future Celtics Owner]

This goes to show how most posters here just want to watch the Celtics for entertainment and would be completely willing to trade Joe Johnson for Roger and Delk again, if we made the ecf.....with no shot at winning a championship

[Future Celtics Owner]

Best case scenario if the Nets get us the first pick:

- we trade our borderline all-star back-court, and others, for 2017 picks and possible franchise young players(that have not broken out yet) like Myles Turner or etc

-Those young players turn out and we have good picks in 2017

- We develop Hunter and Young, give the point to Smart, get mickey playing and see our record tank....but hunter/young show out.

- we get a top pick with our own pick