Why the Lakers are unlikely to get involved in Jimmy Butler trade talks

The Dorian Finney-Smith trade has complicated the Lakers’ path to trading for a max-contract star such as Jimmy Butler.

One week after Miami Heat president Pat Riley declared that he wouldn’t move Jimmy Butler by the Feb. 6 NBA trade deadline, he pulled an about-face. The Heat announced Friday that they were suspending Butler for seven games for “multiple instances of conduct detrimental to the team,” and that they will “listen to offers” since Butler “has shown he no longer wants to be part of this team.”

On Thursday, ESPN’s Shams Charania and Brian Windhorst reported Butler did “not plan to furnish the Heat with a list of favored destinations” and was “open to playing anywhere other than Miami.”

Charania initially reported in mid-December that Butler “was open” to the Dallas Mavericks, Houston Rockets, Golden State Warriors and Phoenix Suns, but he’s now willing to go anywhere because he “believes he can make any team a contender—no matter where he is moved.”

While the Lakers might be tempted to call Miami about Butler, they aren’t likely to swing a deal for him. The Dorian Finney-Smith trade is partially to blame.

Trading D’Angelo Russell and Maxwell Lewis for Finney-Smith and Shake Milton did give the Lakers some much-needed breathing room under the second apron. They were only $30,000 below it before the trade, and they’re $3.5 million under it now.

However, the Lakers are still well above the first apron, which means they can’t take back more salary via a standard trade exception than they send out.

Butler is earning nearly $48.8 million this season. Unless the Lakers were willing to trade LeBron James ($48.7 million) or Anthony Davis ($43.2 million) for Butler, they’d have to aggregate at least four players for salary-matching purposes. Finney-Smith and Milton also can’t be aggregated between now and the trade deadline.

Rui Hachimura is currently the Lakers’ third-highest-paid player at $17.0 million. Since Finney-Smith ($14.9 million) is off the table, the Lakers would have to include Austin Reaves ($13.0 million), Gabe Vincent ($11.0 million) and Jarred Vanderbilt ($10.7 million) to go above the $48.8 million that they’d be required to send out for Butler. Replacing Vanderbilt with Max Christie ($7.1 million) would leave them roughly $700,000 short.

The Heat are also above the first apron, so they likewise can’t take back more salary than they send out in a trade. They could send a few minimum contracts back to the Lakers —Josh Richardson, Kevin Love and Alec Burks would be the obvious candidates — but the Lakers and Heat would need to loop in a third team to make the money work.

That wouldn’t be the deal-breaker, though. The bigger issue is how much depth the Lakers would have to give away.

Vincent and Vanderbilt wouldn’t be huge losses. Vincent is averaging only 18.9 minutes per game off the bench while shooting 37.3% overall, and Vanderbilt has yet to play this season, although he finally seems to be ramping up.

However, Hachimura has started in all 29 games in which he’s played this season and is shooting a team-high 42.0% from deep. Meanwhile, Reaves has gone full supernova lately, averaging 25.5 points, 11.8 assists and 8.3 rebounds over his last four games prior to Friday’s showdown with the Atlanta Hawks.

The Lakers’ backcourt depth already took a hit with the Russell/Finney-Smith swap. If they traded Reaves in a package for Butler, they’d be even further depleted at the guard spots. A James-Butler-Davis Big 3 sounds terrifying in theory, but floor spacing could get cramped, particularly without Reaves and Hachimura alongside them.

If the Lakers could construct a three-team trade where they send out Hachimura, Reaves, Vincent and Vanderbilt and get Butler and a few rotation players on minimum contracts, they might be willing to take that hit to their depth. Otherwise, acquiring Butler might leave them too top-heavy to realistically compete for a championship for the remainder of James’ tenure in L.A.

Unless otherwise noted, all stats via NBA.com, PBPStats, Cleaning the Glass or Basketball Reference. All salary information via Salary Swish and salary-cap information via RealGM.