Trade rumors rankings: Jimmy Butler, De'Aaron Fox and more
The NBA trade market is finally starting to heat up a bit, making it a great time to debut our Trade Rumors Rankings series this season. For those who are unaware, in our Trade Rumors Rankings series, we rank the players who have appeared most often on our Trade Rumors Page over the previous week.
Today, we head to South Beach as a star player reportedly would like out of Miami, as well as to California's state capital after the team just fired its head coach, with another few stops along the way.
5. Cameron Johnson (Brooklyn)
After a bit of a down 2023-24 season, Brooklyn Nets sharpshooter Cameron Johnson is enjoying the best campaign of his career so far this year, averaging a career-high 19.5 points to go with 4.4 rebounds and 3.1 assists on 42.9 percent shooting from three. Johnson has two seasons after this one left on his contract worth a combined $43 million or so, making him a hot commodity on the trade market.
However, Johnson's contract and the complicated new CBA rules have made it so that teams who are interested in him have to be wary of his "apron salary", as explained by Marc Stein below:
Johnson spoke to HoopsHype around a month ago, when he discussed being happy in Brooklyn and wanting to help turn the Nets around but that he wouldn't take things personally if he potentially is traded down the line:
A report out of The Athletic just last week also mentioned that Fox and his agent, Rich Paul, despite not having asked for a trade, are monitoring what goes on with the Kings before deciding what their next move will be.
So Sacramento's very slow start to the season could not have come at a worse time. And after Fox's game-costing foul on Detroit's Jaden Ivey that set up the winning four-point play for the Pistons, and Brown more or less calling his starting point guard out in the post-game presser, there has been scuttle that maybe Fox wasn't the biggest Brown fan, though that is mostly speculative.
What is more certain is that if the Kings don't turn things around soon, they risk Fox potentially asking out.
ESPN's Tim MacMahon linked Fox to the San Antonio Spurs and Houston Rockets, as well as the Miami Heat, as potential trade landing spots:
Two weeks ago, the Chicago Suns-Times reported that the Bulls remain aggressive in their efforts to trade some of their most experienced player, including Vucevic:
Stein also reported that the idea that the Dallas Mavericks, who nearly traded for Kuzma last season, would make another run at the 2020 NBA champion was "strongly dismissed" to him.
A potential landing spot for Kuzma is with the Sacramento Kings, according to The Athletic:
Some of the teams that have already been mentioned as potential landing spots for the star swingman are the Suns, Mavericks, Rockets and Golden State Warriors, with the Suns and Warriors mentioned as Butler's most preferred landing spots.
With scuttle about Butler's unhappiness in Miami reaching a fever pitch, including at a late-week Heat practice where players and coaches were asked about Butler's future with the team, Heat president Pat Riley released a statement flat-out saying the team would not be trading Butler.
We'll see if that winds up being true or not.
So how did we get to this point?
According to reports, there were a lot of factors to it.
For one, Butler was "primarily disappointed" with the team for declining to extend him last summer on what would have been a two-year, $113 million contract. Miami chose to maintain future cap flexibility instead.
But it wasn't all about the money for Butler, as he was also reportedly taken aback after 2023-24 when Riley, in his year-end press conference, publicly told him to keep his mouth shut after Butler facetiously said the Heat would have beaten the Boston Celtics and New York Knicks in the playoffs had he stayed healthy.
Finally, Butler reportedly wanted Miami to get him more help, which the team famously was unable to do during Butler's time in South Florida.
Butler has yet to fully demand a trade and the Heat seem content to let this drag out into the offseason when they'll probably let him walk for nothing to open up financial flexibility, but there's little doubt the team has flubbed this entire situation. Miami, propped up with self-importance after two Finals trips and a run to Game 7 of the Eastern Conference Finals in 2022, very much failed over recent years at landing another star to give the team a legitimate chance at a championship. That was even despite superstar point guard Damian Lillard publicly demanding a trade out of Portland and saying he wanted to join the Heat.
On top of that failure to add more talent around Butler, Riley, who speaks to reporters just once a year, then decided to deride his team's star player publicly and tell him to keep his mouth shut despite all that Butler had done to drag mediocre Heat rosters on multiple deep playoff runs.
It's actually surprising Butler hasn't raised a bigger fuss in Miami – and sooner than now.
Nevertheless, Butler seems likely to remain with the Heat for the rest of 2024-25. We'll see if anything changes on that front. Maybe a team makes Miami an offer it can't refuse in exchange for the aging star.
For the latest Jimmy Butler trade rumors and contract information, click here.
This article originally appeared on Hoops Hype: Trade rumors rankings: Jimmy Butler, De'Aaron Fox and more
