Jimmy Butler, the forward for the Miami Heat, will allegedly be looking for a max contract extension that would put him among the highest-paid players in the NBA, even though he will be 35 years old when the 2024–25 season starts in the fall.
As the Philadelphia 76ers are “monitoring” Butler’s position, ESPN’s Brian Windhorst says that the team may pursue Butler if the Heat decide they want to let go of him and not give him the extension he wants.
“The player at the top of their list is Paul George… And I think that Philly is going to come out with a max offer to Paul George… There are going to be a number of names that are going to come up [in trade rumors] but I’m going to give you two off the bat here. Both involve players who can get extensions with their teams, but for various reasons, will not,” Windhorst explained on ESPN’s Get Up! on Friday, May 3.
“The first name to watch is Jimmy Butler from the Miami Heat. He’s got two years left on his contract, there is interest in him extending, and you may remember, the Sixers chose this Tobias Harris contract instead of paying Jimmy Butler five years ago. Well, that contract is up. If Jimmy Butler wants to extend and the Heat are not willing to do it, is there a way to revisit that? They have assets from the James Harden trade that they could use in addition to cap space.”
According to reports, Brandon Ingram of the New Orleans Pelicans is the other guy the Sixers will be keeping an eye on.
Butler spent the first part of the 2018–19 season in Philadelphia after being acquired by the Sixers via a trade with the Minnesota Timberwolves. Butler signed with the Heat in the offseason after, so things didn’t work out for Philly and him.
Embiid, who is 30 years old, has never participated in more than 68 games in a season (he only played in 39 this year), so the Sixers are probably starting to question how much more they will have with Embiid in his prime before his body begins to fail irreversibly.