Explain: How the Jimmy Butler trade affects the GSW roster, this season and beyond | with Perks

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In this episode, Eric Apricot and Perks from Warriors Reddit and GSWCBA discuss the Jimmy Butler trade and its effects on the future of the Golden State Warriors roster, from the near future with ten day contracts and filling out the roster, into the farther future and the re-signing of Kuminga, Steph and Draymond.

• 00:00 Introduction

• 00:29 The Details of the Jimmy Butler Trade

• 04:33 Jimmy Butler Waives His Trade Bonus

• 05:35 The Trade is a Great Deal; Two Timelines is Alive Again

• 08:08 Jimmy Butler's Next Extension and Circus

• 09:41 Signing Quinten Post

• 12:24 Calendar of Upcoming Moves

• 13:53 Adding Buyout Candidates

• 19:59 Adding a New Two Way Player

• 21:33 Adding a Ten Day Contract; Kevin Knox?

• 23:28 Converting Jackson Rowe?

• 24:51 Converting Pat Spencer?

• 25:58 Re-signing Jonathan Kuminga?

• 32:21 Re-signing Steph Curry? And the End of the First Timeline

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Transcript

Here is a rough transcript of the video interview, which was recorded on 2025-02-07. The video has more detail, including spreadsheets and player highlight film.

Introduction

Eric: Hello everybody! This is Eric Apricot, and I have Perks from Warriors Reddit and GSWCBA on BlueSky. Thanks for joining me, Perks! The Jimmy Butler trade just became official, right?

Perks: It was yesterday.

So here's the thing. The league office is a little backed up. Technically the trade deadline was over at 3pm so we should have seen an announcement then, but they announced a little later just cause, it's a lot of paperwork they have to process. I think there was like, maybe 20 something deals that happened yesterday.

The Details of the Jimmy Butler Trade

Perks: This is a little trade machine I built.

So it was a five team trade. Dunleavy's starting to have this penchant for doing these multi team trades.

He did the first six team deal in history when they did the Klay Thompson trade. Now we got a big five team deal here. But starting at the Warriors side, right? They sent out four players, Wiggins, Schröder, Anderson, Waters, and then they sent out this 2025 top 10 protective pick. And more than likely, should very likely be conveyed.

If for whatever reason it doesn't, it then turns into a 2026 top 10 protected pick. And then if that doesn't convey for some reason, the HEAT would get the 2027 pick unprotected. The HEAT will be getting a first. I think we all expect that first to be this year just because the Warriors shouldn't really be a lottery team.

Eric: Part of that is that there are enough teams tanking that are so bad that it just would be hard to out tank a lot of these teams.

Perks: Yeah, pretty much. And we heard from the Warriors that they didn't necessarily love this draft.

At least not the late first round talent. So I think they obviously want to make the playoffs, not be a lottery team. And then they'll let the HEAT have this pick. And if the HEAT do get this pick, then that kind of opens up the Warriors to be able to trade more firsts.

Eric: So there's the Stepien rule, which is supposed to prevent owners from being so stupid that they trade all of their first round picks.

Perks: This GM back in the day traded every single pick, basically.

So the rule is that you can't go back to back drafts without having a pick.

Eric: And then the subtlety of it is a pick like the Warriors just traded, it's probably going to convey in 2025, but it might convey in 2026 or 2027. So right now, the Warriors can't trade any pick within one year of 2025, 2026 or 2027, right?

Perks: Correct, yeah.

So basically, all the picks are frozen as of this current moment, but as soon as this conveys to Miami, that frees up everything.

Eric: But in theory they could trade like top five protected, to another team, right?

Six through 10.

Perks: Yeah. So they could structure it in a way where Miami gets 11 through 30. And then the Warriors keep one through five and then they give six through 10 to another team. It's something like that I think would work.

Eric: Okay. So you had the four players out, you've got the two picks, and then Jimmy Butler coming in.

Perks: Outside of the first, the Warriors actually sent out a 31st second, and that pick is ending up. With Detroit, and that was a pick the Warriors actually initially sent out in the Timberwolves trade when they acquired Kyle Anderson.

And Timberwolves had the right to swap that pick. And, so the Warriors would get the least favorable of Minnesota and their own pick in 2031. And now they just completely gave up on that pick and gave it to Detroit to take on that salary. What's significant about that is the Warriors are now down to two seconds.

One of those seconds is for this season, which is a Miami pick second rounder. More than likely conveys to the Warriors. It's only top 37 protected. And the only other pick they have in the second round is this 2030 pick that is actually a part of the Washington trade as a stipulation.

Eric: Okay and the downside of not having so many second round picks is that, number one, it's really good to grease trades with one to five second round picks. Number two, the Warriors have been quite good at drafting in the second round.

And on the other hand, you can buy second round picks usually. So Quinten Post's pick was bought back from I guess Portland, I think was the last team to have that. And then, I

Perks: That pick has a funny story, cause they originally got that in the Cory Joseph salary dump and then they traded it to the Thunder for Lindy Waters.

Eric: Yeah, I remember the Quinten Post draft day, which we were all doing live on DNHQ. And as I remember it, first the Lindy Waters news came out fairly early. And so that was exciting, but also depressing because then there was no draft pick. And then, when I think 52 came around, I think it was announced that Quinten Post was drafted by OKC. And I felt very depressed because that was the person that I thought Golden State was targeting, and then it was announced that there was a trade,

Perks: The Thunder traded it to Portland and then the Warriors bought it back from Portland. So it went through a bunch of hands.

Eric: So it was a very confusing draft day.

Perks: Yeah, they can acquire picks. Teams tend to usually do that on draft day. So I think it hurts the Warriors more so if they want to do a Dennis Schröder type trade where they send that a couple seconds to acquire a player, that's why the Schröder trade maybe hurts them a little bit because, you send out these assets for a player that you ended up dumping, what, two months later.

Jimmy Butler Waives His Trade Bonus

Perks: A key detail is Jimmy Butler had a 15 percent trade bonus, which is capped by the maximum salary.

So he could have added, 400, 000 to his contract. It would have been paid by the HEAT. It just would have been on the Warriors' books. But according to Bobby Marks, that's been waived. So that's going to give the Warriors, if you see here, the adjusted apron space.

After the trade, they are below the hard cap and then they have three roster spots to fill. And then this is my projected number of the cost is going to take to do that. Yeah, Jimmy waving his bonus definitely helps them a little bit to give a little breathing room.

Had he not done that, by my calculations, if the Warriors had filled out the roster the cheapest way possible, they would have finished the season at 12, 000 underneath the hard cap, which is like basically a hair below it.

Eric: Wow, okay,

Perks: interesting

Eric: And Butler gives this impression of someone who wants every single dollar that's owed to him.

So It was not to be assumed that he would waive this trade kicker.

Perks: Yeah, I thought he would just keep it, cause the math works and then Miami would pay for it. But the fact that he's waiving it, is a sign that, he's committed. And, the 400, 000 isn't worth him as much as, giving the Warriors a little bit more flexibility to try to fill out this roster.

The Trade is a Great Deal; Two Timelines is Alive Again

Eric: Basketball wise, how are we feeling about that?

Perks: Jimmy's a great player. He's definitely going to help them. He's going to make them better. He's going to elevate the top level of their lineups. Give Steph some breathing room. The Warriors needed to do something just cause, you look at this roster. It wasn't going anywhere.

They were very mediocre. If you look at what they gave up in terms of long term future assets. It's not really much. Wiggins hurts.

Eric: I think we all loved him. You gave up a couple of rotation players. You give up that 2025 pick. I think the cost wasn't exuberant.

I think the deal as a deal is great. It's way better than I expected.

Eric: You gave out Schröder and Anderson and Waters. Even though I find them all very likable and easy to root for, statistically they were rather negative for the team. And Wiggins, I think he was one of the best players on the team for the last couple of weeks, but some analytics don't like him. Also, if you're getting an all star, you have to trade something. So you can't just trade the worst players on your team and a protected pick. Given all the possibilities, somehow they managed to get Jimmy Butler for no young people. I was prepared for Kuminga, Moody, Trayce, Podz, any of these guys to be going out and it didn't happen. So I just find this a sort of astounding bargain from that point of view.

I've seen a couple of articles saying two timelines is dead, but weirdly enough I think two timelines is now alive.

Perks: Yeah, I completely agree with that.

I think if anything, this is more of them leaning into the two timeline thing because you've structured it in a way where you've set up this window of Steph, Jimmy, and Draymond, and a collection of guys. And maybe it works out, maybe it doesn't. If it doesn't, you still basically have your entire arsenal of picks.

You still have Pods, you still have JK. So you can, either pivot to rebuild, which I don't think any of us want, but is, a realistic option, or you can turn Jimmy's salary into another player or another combination of players, so they still have a ton of optionality.

Eric: Butler's got to be the second best offensive player Steph has ever played with. With all due respect to Klay.

Perks: Yeah

Eric: Outside of KD that just hasn't ever been someone who's a high level shot creator and closer like Jimmy. So if he's not washed, or demonic, or injured, then this could be really, really good. We probably dropped eight to ten games this year where there was a really significant lead that the Warriors should have held on to.

And if the Warriors win half those games, suddenly the season looks really different.

Perks: I don't know if there'll be contention level. I think that's maybe pushing it, but I definitely think they can be a team that can make some noise in the playoffs and definitely, not someone people want to see so but that's you know, best case scenario.

Eric: I agree.

Jimmy Butler's Next Extension and Circus

Eric: So I'm expecting a circus whenever Jimmy Butler is available for his next extension. When would the next reasonable time be for him to be wanting an extension?

Perks: Yeah. So if we go over here to my spreadsheet, this is currently what their future roster outlook is.