The Chicago Bulls stumbled onto a superstar with the No. 30 pick in the 2011 NBA Draft, selecting Marquette swingman Jimmy Butler on the heels of a 62-20 win season. The club didn’t exactly expect to uncover the perfect two-way partner for then-MVP point guard Derrick Rose, but it did. In fairness, by the time Butler had fully blossomed, Rose’s body had betrayed him.
In 2014-15, Butler emerged as the club’s best player, a dynamic perimeter force with a deft scoring touch. New free agent signing Pau Gasol was reinvigorated by the change in scenery and returned to his All-Star ways even as Joakim Noah began to regress.
Chicago head coach Tom Thibodeau helped guide the club to a 50-win campaign and the East’s No. 3 seed. Rose was fitfully healthy, but looked more or less like his old self in time for a spirited Bulls playoff run that ended in a tough six-game defeat to LeBron James’ Cleveland Cavaliers.
Thibodeau was fired that summer. Butler went on to make three All-Star squads in Chicago, but he only returned to the playoffs once in the next two seasons: with the Bulls’ mismatched 2016-17 “Three Alphas” lineup comprising Butler, Dwyane Wade and Rajon Rondo. Chicago fell to the Boston Celtics in a six-game first-round playoff series.
That summer, the Bulls traded Butler, still in his absolute prime at age 28, to Thibodeau’s Minnesota Timberwolves in the summer of 2017. In exchange, the Timberwolves swapped their No. 7 pick (which became Lauri Markkanen) with Chicago’s No. 16 selection, plus guards Zach LaVine and Kris Dunn.
Since that fateful moment, the Bulls have made exactly one playoff appearance. Butler twice was the best player on an NBA Finals team, the Miami Heat in 2020 and ’23.
Jeff Hanisch-USA TODAY SportsWhen Did the Bulls Decide to Deal Jimmy Butler?
Naismith Hall of Fame Curt Gowdy Award winner Sam Smith explains the thinking behind the then-Chicago front office brain trust of John Paxson and Gar Forman’s decision to trade Butler at the peak of his powers.
“One thing I would remind you of, is that — and I don’t know this for sure — but I think the turning point was that series with Boston. They win the first two games… Rondo gets hurt. They come back, up 2-0, basically with homecourt advantage — it was 8 [vs] 1, it’s the top seed — and Jimmy and Wade together can’t them one game. Can’t win one game, lose four straight,” Smith says. “And I think when the team looked back with Jimmy and Wade, which is what it was gonna be — because Wade was not gonna take a buyout if Jimmy was there — they’re looking at a run of .500 seasons.”
Of course, we’ve seen how great Butler can be when surrounded by a supporting roster that makes sense (defensive versatility and shooting). But Bleacher Nation will concede that GarPax was likely never going to get him there.
“So they basically did what they did now, they just did it sooner, when Jimmy was in his prime,” Smith adds, linking the Bulls’ flurry of moves this past February to the team’s trajectory-altering Butler deal in 2017. “And got a good haul for it… They changed management mid-stream. The new management wanted their own imprint, didn’t believe in the guys they got: Markkanen, Kris Dunn.”
Zach LaVine, of course, made both of his All-Star squads after the Timberwolves dealt him to the Bulls. Markkanen blossomed years after Chicago offloaded him, nabbing one All-Star berth so far. It took a rocky road, but Dunn has emerged as a solid, defense-first starter on the LA Clippers. Not a bad haul. But none of these players will ever be Jimmy Butler-level good. That’s the risk you run in flipping the contract of a two-way All-Star in his prime.
Bruce Kluckhohn-Imagn Images“Back then, they were kind of stuck in the middle. As good as Jimmy was, they just couldn’t get out of .500,” Smith observes. “And like I said, I think the seminal moment was, they couldn’t win one game with Jimmy and Wade at their best when Rondo went out.
“It’s unrealistic to think he was gonna have a long run in Chicago where he was, and with the quality of the team at the time,” Smith adds. “After five, six years in Chicago, it’s hard to imagine that would have sustained — especially playing the way they were.”
In the playoffs during those two charmed Finals seasons, it’s worth remembering that Miami was a No. 5 seed in 2020 and a No. 8 seed in 2023. The Heat’s records were not extraordinary relative to their peers, in either of those seasons. But it didn’t matter in the playoffs. Butler did manage to help push the Heat to a No. 1 seed in 2022, it’s worth noting. The team pushed the Boston Celtics to a seven-game Eastern Conference Finals series that spring.
This nugget is just one among many that Smith gave Bleacher Nation. Check out his notes on his blockbuster Bulls-dynasty era book The Jordan Rules, his thoughts on Artis Gilmore’s NBA 75th Anniversary List candidacy, and an extensive chat about his new book with Phil Jackson, the essential Masters of the Game: A Conversational History of the NBA in 75 Legendary Players.
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