Chicago Bulls Will Pay for Gambling on Jimmy Butler's Contract Extension

The Chicago Bulls were never going to keep Jimmy Butler on the cheap, but now the price is going to skyrocket.

According to Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo Sports, team and player couldn't come together on a contract extension before the Oct. 31 deadline. Butler broke things down after negotiations fell through:

"

It came down to me deciding that I want to bet on myself. It was about me believing that I put the work in this summer to become a better player with the hope that my improvement will give the Bulls a better chance to win a championship.

"

Strong.

There's something endearing about that phrasing, that self-assured tone. Butler believes in himself. He's confident the Bulls' offer wasn't commensurate with his value. It's up to him to prove that's the case.

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To be fair to Chicago, we can't rightly say it skimped on its offer. According to K.C. Johnson of the Chicago Tribune, "Sources said the Bulls offered a multiyear deal averaging $11 million during lengthy, cordial conversations." 

All we know is Butler thought he could make more by playing another season and hitting the market this summer. Chicago's perception of market value simply differed from Butler's.

It sounds like Butler's agent, Happy Walters, was less than pleased with the process. "We tried like heck to get something done, but ultimately, the Bulls wanted a ‘hometown’ discount," Walters told Wojnarowski. "While understandable, I doubt their GM or coaches give (owner) Mr. Reinsdorf a discount when negotiating their own deals."

No problem, right? If Butler is a max player, the market will dictate that next summer, at which point Chicago can pay him that much—by matching another team's max offer sheet if necessary. Easy.

Except it's not.

Nate Duncan of Basketball Insiders explains:

"

If the Bulls have to match a max offer sheet to Butler, they will be only about $3 million short of the projected Apron, including Dunleavy’s cap hold. If they use either the MLE or BAE, they would be hard-capped at the Apron for the season. Even if they were to let Dunleavy go, they would have difficulty using both the full MLE and BAE while staying below the Apron. ...A maximum offer sheet for Butler could really crimp the Bulls’ 2015 offseason, and potentially their profits.

"

In other words, the Bulls may have given up a lot more than a few million bucks by failing to reach a deal with Butler. They may have given up a ton of their future flexibility.

Of course, that's only a problem if Butler plays well enough to command such an offer from another team when he hits restricted free agency. Unfortunately for the Bulls, there are a number of reasons pointing to that outcome.

Max Credentials

For starters, Butler is already an elite wing defender. Though he had a poor offensive season a year ago, there were mitigating circumstances: A toe injury sapped the lift on his jumper, and the Bulls had no capable facilitators to set him up for open shots.

So while Butler's 28.3 percent shooting from long range in 2013-14 is worrisome, it might very well have been an outlier. After all, he connected on 38.1 percent of his long-range shots in a fully healthy 2012-13.

It's probably unrealistic to expect Butler to develop into a major offensive threat. He doesn't handle the ball particularly well, and even if his shooting accuracy eventually draws closer to where it was two seasons ago, it may never be elite.

Still, as SBNation's Jason Patt notes, he's got value as a scorer—albeit an unconventional kind:

Also in Butler's favor is the trend of making huge offers to good, but imperfect, players.

Gordon Hayward is a solid young talent, but he's not great at any one thing. He got a four-year, $63 million offer sheet the Utah Jazz had to match. Klay Thompson is playing out of his mind in the young season, but his player efficiency rating has never been above the league average of 15.00 in any year.

He got a four-year max deal at the deadline.

There's a precedent for spending big on potential, and Butler still has plenty of that.

There's also the Chandler Parsons scenario, in which a team gives Butler a borderline max deal with an opt-out after the second year. Chicago would then be faced with the double-whammy of having to match max cash and letting Butler get away in as few as two seasons.

Not exactly appealing from the Bulls' standpoint.

Butler's top-notch defense and capacity to improve on the other end put him right there alongside the Thompsons and Haywards and Parsons of the world. And his highly competitive demeanor will only motivate him to get better.

Put simply, the Bulls may regret giving someone like Butler a reason to try even harder.

Hope Springs?

Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images

One positive sign for Chicago is Butler's stated desire to remain right where he is.

"Yeah, [the deadline is] over with, but this is still home, these are still my guys,’’ Butler told reporters. “This is the team I want to be on, this is the city I want to represent. So I’m happy, and I’ll be happy for a long time.’’

It's great that all parties remain on seemingly good terms, but Butler's position presumes he'll have control of the process next summer—and we know restricted free agency is more complicated than that.

The Bulls will have the final say, but their hands will be partially tied. At the mercy of 29 other teams—at least a few of which may be willing to spend whatever it takes to get Butler—and an unpredictable market, Chicago will have to react.

Its chance to act has already passed.

As if the stakes weren't high enough, the Bulls now continue a ring-chasing season in which Derrick Rose and Joakim Noah's health makes things precarious.

Hoping to capitalize on a shrinking window before the Cleveland Cavaliers fully jell into the monster everyone expects them to become, the Bulls now have to soldier on with the knowledge that this might be Butler's last season with the team.

It'll definitely be his last season as an affordable commodity.

The Bulls are already executing a high-wire act this year—and every year as long as Rose is their cornerstone. By failing to lock up Butler, they've only added to the degree of difficulty—this season and in the future.

Contract information courtesy of Spotrac.

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