Oklahoma City Thunder: Does OKC have to trade Russell Westbrook and rebuild?

Jimmy Butler

Westbrook to Miami has been rumored in the past 24 hours, but what if the opposite happens? The cantankerous Butler is always a candidate to force a trade. On December 15th, he can be shipped anywhere, so why not OKC for the Schroder, Roberson, Patterson and SGA package?

Part of the reason the Heat have been content to tread water, rather than tank, since being spurned by Gordon Hayward, is their draft obligations. OKC now has rights to their 2021 and 2023 picks, their remaining outgoing first round picks, so getting those picks back would empower the Heat to tank and build around Bam Adebayo and Justise Winslow.

With SGA in tow, the Heat’s own two picks and two from the Clippers should be enough to convince them to take on OKC’s bad contracts and embrace the lottery. For OKC, this would effectively mean turning Paul George into Butler, one unprotected Clippers’ pick, swap rights to two more Clippers picks, and offloading bad contracts. Not a terrible summer.