The Golden State Warriors acquired Jimmy Butler on Wednesday night and immediately agreed to a two-year, $111 million extension to keep him, if they want, through 2027, when the contracts of Stephen Curry and Draymond Green are also set to expire.
Counting this season, that gives the Warriors three theoretical runs at one last title before the sun sets on Steph. I say theoretical because that’s only on paper. In reality, there’s a real chance this doesn’t work out and the Warriors end up seeing what they can get for Butler, maybe as soon as next season. This might be a one-year run.
After all, if Luka Doncic to the Lakers has taught us anything (to say nothing of Butler’s track record of eventually blowing his way out of every organization he’s ever played for), it’s that every player-team relationship is pretty much year-to-year, if not month-to-month.
But for now, optimism abounds as Butler brings his talents to the Bay. Is it warranted? It depends on your expectations. Does Butler make the Warriors better? No question. Does he make the Warriors a threat to make playoff noise? Absolutely. Does he make the Warriors a title contender? Probably not.
But probably is the operative term there. Before Butler, the answer to whether the Warriors were a title contender was absolutely not. Hell, they were starting to look like a decent bet to miss the Play-In altogether, and frankly it’s still no guarantee they won’t. Following a disgusting loss to the Jazz on Wednesday after news of the trade broke, the Warriors would be in the lottery if the season ended right now, and they’re only one game up in the loss column over the No. 12 Spurs, who obviously just got significantly better with the addition of De’Aaron Fox.
All of which is to say, this is still going to be a steep climb for the Warriors over the season’s final 30-ish games. But it’s now a climb worth watching, and that has a lot of value. I was on air with former NBA player Evan Turner on Wednesday and he said something that struck me, that he didn’t want to have to watch playoff basketball without Steph Curry a part of it. There’s so much truth in that.
This Warriors team had become almost unwatchable at times, and that was just too bitter a pill to swallow as a fan. Not as a Warriors fan. As a basketball fan. An even halfway relevant Curry is a precious present to all of us, and it’s the least they owed Curry after all he’s done for the franchise, which is now valued at about $8 billion more than it was before he was drafted.
Curry deserves a chance to compete. Beyond that, nothing can be guaranteed. But he has earned the irrefutable right to go out fighting. And I’ll tell you this, there aren’t many players you’d rather go into a basketball fight with than Playoff Jimmy.
Playoff Jimmy is no joke. If he can call upon that alter ego a few more times, or at least one more time, he gives the Warriors the true second scorer they have been desperate to add next to Curry, who is drowning amid defenses that aren’t concerned with a single other player the Warriors put on the court.
Moreover, Butler can create on his own offense outside the Golden State system — which, for all its randomness, has become ironically predictable. Switch all of Curry’s off-ball screens and dare some second-rate scorer to do something for himself. Watching this offense try to create individual advantages has become painful.
Butler changes that, at least. He can punish teams that focus too much on Curry, and he gives them a late-game bucket-getter that can potentially give them the edge in all these close games they find themselves in. It happened again on Wednesday in Utah, where the Warriors played their 31st clutch game of the season — meaning it was within five points with five minutes to play. They lost for the 15th time.
These are 50/50 games that can turn on one or two plays, and Butler can make those plays. He gives the Warriors toughness and defense and proven playoff moxie. He can get to the rim and the free throw line, two areas of the court to which the current Warriors are deathly allergic.
What Butler doesn’t give the Warriors is shooting, specifically 3-point shooting, and this is going to be a problem — if not the problem — that Steve Kerr has to figure out. If Kerr starts Butler, Green, Jonathan Kuminga and a center (Trayce Jackson-Davis, Quentin Post or Kevon Looney), that’s four non-shooters next to Curry.
Defenses will be sagging off the 3-point line and packing the paint in an almost impregnable way. If Kerr goes small and starts Buddy Hield for an extra shooter, with Green at center, the defense suffers — probably in an unsustainable way next to Curry, who is more vulnerable as a defender than he ever was in his prime.
The Warriors could help their cause considerably if they made another trade before Thursday’s deadline for a center who can shoot, so they could play a big man next to Green and not suffer a spacing crisis. Nikola Vucevic is still out there, and it would behoove the Warriors to think seriously about making Chicago an offer it can’t refuse. They already committed to Butler. No sense in making it a half measure when they managed to retain almost all of their future equity. There’s still some to play with.
If they make a move like that, and especially if Jonathan Kuminga comes back from injury and performs like the future superstar the Warriors so desperately want to believe he is, they climb closer to contender status. If they don’t, they’re going to need a 35-year-old Butler to turn back into a playoff superhero to have even a fighting chance. But a fighting chance is still a chance. Which is a lot more than the Warriors had before this deal.
