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Five On The Floor: Miami Heat/NBA

Thoughts on a Jimmy Butler extension: The Five Guys (bonus episode)

Duration:
40m
Broadcast on:
03 May 2024
Audio Format:
mp3

The Miami Heat were blown out yet again by the Boston Celtics in a decisive game five in New England. Now the focus will shift to what avenue Pat Riley and the Heat organization will take in the future. Will they commit to a multi-year extension for Jimmy Butler into his mid-30's or will the Heat choose to hit the reset button? Hosts Ethan Skolnick and Alex Donno look into the future.


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Hey, it's Ethan Skolnir for five on the floor in the Five Reason Sports Network. Sometimes we give you some episodes from our YouTube channel. You can find it at Five Reason Sports YouTube. Make sure you like, subscribe, and turn the notifications on for all of your South Florida sports content. Today Alex Slido, Greg Sylvander, and Brady Hawk took a well-deserved day off. So I was on with Alex Dono on our show. We call it the Five Guys every Tuesday and Thursday we cover all South Florida sports. Today we decided to talk about the heat, largely about the possibility of a Jimmy Butler contract extension. So make sure you check it out. Again, every Tuesday and Thursday, here's the latest episode of the Five Guys. Welcome to Five on the Floor. A daily insider show on the Miami Heat and the NBA. Featuring Ethan Skolnir, Greg Sylvander, and Alex Slido, plus others from the Five Reason Sports Network. All right, welcome in to the Five Guys on the Five Reason's YouTube channel, and also we'll be putting this on the Five on the Floor podcast feed. So if you're listening there, we appreciate you. And also again, make sure you subscribe, like, and turn the notifications on on the YouTube channel. I'm Ethan Skolnir. I'm Ethan Skolnir. I'm Ethan Skolnir. I'm Ethan Skolnir. I'm Ethan Skolnir. I'm going to Five Reason Sports. And as is the case every Tuesday and Thursday, my co-host is Alex Dono. You can follow him at Alex Dono. Before we get to today's topic, I want to mention a great sponsor of the Five Reason Sports Network. You guys are familiar with this one from Five on the Floor and our other properties. It's water cleanup of Florida. You can find them at WCUFL.com. That's WCUFL.com. Any leaks in your home, in your business, reach out to them immediately. Don't wait for it to become a disaster or they certainly can't fix it after it is. Reach out to them and get a WCUFL.com. They'll do a damage assessment. They do the water mitigation, the dry out, everything they do there and get in their preventative program. Because again, you don't want to deal with the insurance companies afterwards if you don't have to. Five, six, one, four, zero, eight, seven, eight, three, five. Again, that's five, six, one, four, zero, eight, seven, eight, three, five. Michael Robert and his team, they're based a book or a tone, but they service all three counties down there. And if you've got the schmutz, they've got the guts. They got the guts. They got the guts. All right. Now we are, we're headed towards gut check time for the offseason for the Miami Heat. They lose to the Boston Celtics blown out in four or five games. They got one win. I think we said that it would look like a miracle in retrospect that they actually got that win with the way that some of the other games have gone. And we also talked before the series. We did it here and we did it on five on the floor that certain players had something at stake. For me, guys like Yovitch and Hakka is there really wasn't a lot to lose here. This was just playoff experience. Of course, Hakka didn't play in the last game. Yovitch got limited minutes in one of those games. But again, this is just growth for them. You weren't expecting them to lead a team at this stage. And I know people are going to start throwing him into trade machines. I would not be throwing the koliyovich into a trade machine, but I know others may do so. But there were others for which there was something at stake. And primarily among them were kind of Tyler Hero, who is under contract. And Kayla Martin, who may not be if he decides to opt out of the 7.1 million he's due in the last year. But the topic that came up today, and I'm not surprised this was in Anthony Chang's piece, he had this one ready. I've heard whispers about this behind the scenes for a little while, Alex, that this was going to be topic 1A for the Miami Heat this offseason, even beyond who they bring in, which is what they do with their existing superstar. If you want to call him that at this stage, and that's a conversation I think we need to have. And that's Jimmy Butler. And Anthony's piece, Alex, details this that he wants to have. He's got one more year under contract. Then he has a player option. And he wants the player option ripped up. And then to get an additional year after that, which would take him until he's about 37 years and eight months by the end of that contract. And he wants essentially over $110 million for those last two years. So to be paid as a player who's making $55 or so million, just for some comparison stake, Alex, as sake, Alex, as I bring you into this, he made $45 million this year, and he's going to make 48 point eight next year. So this would be essentially ripping up a $52 million player option and giving him about 56 for the last year of the deal as it currently exists, which is 2526. And then according to the chain, according to the Chang story, oh, yeah, okay, you're right, about the 55, the 54.3 million for 2526. And then 58.6 million for 2627. Right. So essentially would be about a two to $3 million raise over what he's supposed to get if he opts in in the last year of this deal. So you're really only talking about two to three, four million dollars more. But then it's the extra year that that's really the issue. It's not people are looking at this as a two year extension. It's really not. It's a little extra money. I mean, two million, we would all take it, I'm sure. But as the overall percentage of the contract, and with the cap likely going up in the luxury tax line and the red apron, the red apron, the, the, the second apron lines going up, two to three million is not that significant. It's adding the additional year at more than $55 million that is going to become the conversation point here. And I'll just go to you, and then I'll get into my thoughts on this. Do you think that he is, let's start before we get into what he's done to this point. Do you think he'll be a $55 million player at the end of this contract? Absolutely not. If you commit to that sort of money, if I'm looking at the reported figure for what that final year would be 58.6 million for the 2026, 2027 season. If you do that, you are paying him based on whatever meaning you think he has to this franchise. And you're basically giving him a lifetime achievement award. And hey, we love you so much. Thank you so much for those improbable finals runs. Like it's not, it doesn't make actual sense dollars and cents. It just doesn't. And you know, I know that you probably know more than I do. Obviously the TV money is going to go up. And so the cap is going to get bigger. So obviously you'd be talking about 58.6 million in a bigger salary cap than what we have now. So the percentage would adjust a little bit, but still giving that big of a percentage of salary cap to someone who's going to be 37 to commit that to a 37 year old not named LeBron James when he was 37. That's a hard sell for me, especially when again, and this is, this is cold. I get it because I'm, I'm not really commenting on Jimmy as a player when he's healthy. I'm commenting on the reality in the big picture with Jimmy Butler is already at 34 years old. He's not been dependable to consistently play. And I know that a lot of that in the regular season was by design, it was maintenance. And then he had the bad luck of, of suffering the injury, you know, to begin the playoff run, the run, you know, it was a walk, it was a playoff walk, a five game elimination, you know, so that it is what it is. He's got the history of not getting through seasons healthy, of having injury issues at 34. Even that stuff doesn't tend to get better when you get older, right? If you're having availability problems at 34 years old, you can't count on having less available availability issues at 37 years old. So quite frankly, as a Miami Heat fan, I think there's a couple different ways to look at it. How sentimental are you? Like how sent it? Because some people will bring up, hey, they should have taken better care of Duane Wade. Thankfully, that had a happy ending because he ended up, you know, coming back and having the last dance tour and stuff. But it broke a lot of hearts when Wade left Miami for Chicago. Like it broke a lot of hearts down here. And I've seen more than one person, but probably more than a dozen people bring it up that, Hey, like, they didn't do right by Wade that time, they're not going to make that mistake with Jimmy. But it's like, are you sentimental or not? Because okay, doing right by Jimmy is one thing. But are you handcuffing your franchise? Are you handcuffing your salary cap to someone who hasn't consistently enough shown that he can be available in the regular season wasn't available this time around in the playoffs. And as someone who wants to see my team, you know, contending for championships continually as they so often done, this scares me to death, like committing that much money to a 37 year old Jimmy Butler, it scares me to death even. So I'm going to get to a couple comments here and then I'll address some of what you said, some of the things that are coming in on the chat. J Smith asked curious if it was curious if it was Jimmy's camp that leaked that number. There's really no need to leak the number. I mean, we were kind of aware of what the numbers would be. It's a max extension. The only question was how many years he was going to ask for. And I can tell you that I've been hearing for the last month or two that this was again going to be topic one a as soon as the season ended. I also know for sure, okay, that the last time that they went to go get an extension for Jimmy, which the Heat granted their camp was expecting a fight on it. And there was no fight. They basically, they went to, there was a meeting between the representation for Butler and the core members, you can figure out who they are. Okay, obviously they include Pat Nandy, I believe Mickey might have been there as well. And Nick, and there was a dinner and it was like, okay, here. I mean, there was no question. But that was Jimmy at a different age. And I think this is kind of where it comes down. And this is where I'm at with it. You mentioned the Wade thing. Okay. There's absolutely no question that the organization was scored by that experience as they should have been. Okay, as they should have been. They had legitimate reasons for not just giving Dwayne the farm at that point. And a lot of it had to do with what we saw happen with the Lakers and Kobe at the end. And I know that there's been a lot of revisionist history about Kobe, obviously, because of the tragedy in that situation. But at the time, there was a lot of criticism of the Lakers for basically hamstringing the franchise. The team wasn't very good for a couple of years. As a result, in part, some of it was their own fault drafting development decision making, but some of it was Kobe's contract. Now, you mentioned that the cap and tax, we could go up. Yes. I mean, right now, Amazon is built and NBC is building billions of dollars. Okay. And that's going to increase what they're looking at in terms of these rights fees, in terms of what the cap's going to go to and what percentage and the players are obviously going to get a significant percentage of that. So it may be a lesser percentage of the cap than we're projecting right now. Okay. But I'll say this, the organization, okay, which tried to be responsible with the Duane thing and actually presented to Duane, although he didn't want to hear it at the time, a way for him to recoup money down the road. And he didn't trust it even though he'd been with the organization for that long. We can argue whether he should have or he shouldn't have, he ended up taking less money in Chicago if you add in the Illinois state taxes. He did it because he was hurt. I mean, I talked to him throughout the entire process. He was hurt. He was hurt. The Pat didn't get involved after Pat had been involved the previous year and then Pat had to get out of the way because Pat and Henry Thomas weren't seeing eye to eye on it. The late Henry Thomas, Duane's agent, who they'd worked with many times with Haslam, with Bosch, with Tim Hardaway, et cetera, Pat got out of the way. And then I know for a fact, because I was communicating with both of them, that both Duane and Gabby were upset about that, that Pat did not get involved. They felt abandoned by Pat. There was a real reason why he did it. It's the previous year, 2015. Mickey and Nick had to broker the deal once everybody got out of the way. And so it was one year, 20 million that they brokered between his house. But anyway, it's a long way of saying, they've been through all this before. Alex, and they made a decision not to break the bank for Duane to try to do it in a responsible way. And they were killed for it. Okay. And so then they overreacted by overpaying slightly above average players like James Johnson and Dion Waiters, okay, after they had them on good one year deals and they decided to extend them with good money. And I feel like ever since there has been this thing that if they ever end up with a player of Duane's caliber or close to it, they will take care of them. They gave BAM the extension a year early when they didn't have to. And that hamstrung them in the pursuit of Giannis, I think they will ultimately been with Jimmy. And here's what I'll say, Alex, and I'll throw this question at you. If you're going to give Jimmy that kind of money, okay, because of the optics, because of what he's given to you, not what you're expecting him to give, what are your expectations for him? Because to me, if you're going to give, if you're going to add this extra year to him, like to me, this comes with, okay, we're going to get more out of you in the regular season. Otherwise, you're asking him to pull a Houdini act in the playoffs all the time. He's not going to be capable of doing that from a seven or eight seed, because again, he's playing 50 games during the regular season. He's playing 15 of them hard. Yeah, if you commit to this extension, the expectation has to be like, obviously, occasional maintenance, occasional maintenance is reasonable, because we still want to win in the playoffs, so we can't expect you at 35, and then 36, then 37 to play 82. And so, yes, a certain amount of maintenance is reasonable, but you can't be appearing in 55, 50, 58 games because of maintenance. And then expect that to be okay, because guess what, if you played in more regular season games, heat wouldn't have been to play in, and then the eight seed in the first place, and they wouldn't have had to go through Boston. And maybe even if Jimmy had gotten hurt, they could have had a better shot to pull something out of the hat in that first round series. So, you're a thousand percent right, and it's one area where, you know, I, it felt like, and maybe, maybe they were just two different personalities, Ethan, but, you know, this idea of like bending so much to a star player that never used to be Miami's MO, because wasn't that a big reason why LeBron decided he'd be more comfortable in a different organization in Cleveland at the time, when he left here, was because, you know, they just wasn't that sort of an organization where he got to run the show. He got a chance to run the show other places. So, it's like, you feel like now they're letting Jimmy run the show in a way that they didn't let LeBron run the show. Oh, they have, but they absolutely have. I mean, like, there's no comparison to what the way they were with LeBron and the way they are with Jimmy. There's just, I mean, I was, I was there, I'm not there with them on the road. Like I was, I traveled to pretty much every game for the big three. I was around that team all the time. I knew all the inner workings of it. You know, this team, I'm at the home games and obviously covering it from a podcast perspective, but not on the road as much. But, I mean, Jimmy gets his own hotel on the road often. Like, that was not something that was ever considered with LeBron. I just, you know, I mean, even the dealings with the media and people take this as sour grapes. Like, I don't care if Jimmy talks to the media after every game or not. I don't. I just know that LeBron did it. I know that, I know that LeBron spoke basically twice a day. Now, part of this was that, and you know, LeBron didn't show up at postgame press conferences shirtless or kind of where the media relations department is like, asking like, well, we'll let you know, we'll let you know if Jimmy feels like talking today. And that, that Matt, see, some of that stuff does matter and not for us. Again, I don't care if we get the quotes or not. He's a great quote when he does talk. But then it falls on other guys. Like, like, like, like this thing, I kind of feel like everything is falling on Bam lately. Like, we saw it on the floor. He's got to kind of be the face of the franchise. He's the one who has to deal with the media every day. He's kind of expected to keep guys in line in that regard. And again, Bam, and this plays in too. Bam is going to be up for an extension also. So now you're talking about, I mean, if you're going to commit another year to Jimmy, you're going to be committing to Bam's timeline and they're not trading Bam. Okay. So they're committing to Bam's timeline and his money. You're talking about investing a hundred million dollars a year basically into the two of them, right? So I, so, you know, my thing on this is, and again, I don't want to get into the media stuff. Like I said, it doesn't matter. I'm just saying you asked about letting, having certain standards for LeBron that they didn't, they don't have for Jimmy. That's absolutely true. Okay. But I also think they were scarred by the LeBron thing. They were scarred. Pat was scarred by LeBron leaving what he felt was a generational team. That wasn't the only reason he left, by the way. There were personal reasons, there were a whole bunch, there were legacy reasons, there were marriage. There were a lot of reasons. Okay. That LeBron left. All right. But the reality is he left. Okay. Yeah. And they haven't forgotten it. And then Dwayne left, right? And it wasn't just the two of them. Bosch and they did the right thing with Bosch, Alex, by not letting him play because he could have died, but he wasn't happy either. Okay. That's nobody on the big three teams left happy. Okay. Mike Miller wasn't happy to do his amnesty. Okay. Mario Chalmers was pissed off about the way he was handled. So it was Chris saying, I mean, I was there in all those rooms. They've brought all these guys back into the fold. And a lot of it had to do with a simple conversation between Kobe Altman and Andy Ellesburg. We said, well, you want Dwayne back. And if that doesn't happen, Jimmy's probably not even here. So they've repaired all of that stuff. I don't think they want to have a public messy situation with a guy and Jimmy Butler, who literally took the third stringers in Minnesota, okay, to embarrass towns and Wiggins. Like, this is not the guy you want to go to war with, particularly with everything that he's given to the franchise. Well, yeah. And I got, I got to follow up question on that because like, there are, there are different ways to go to war. And, you know, I have seen people bring up the point that even if you don't give him the extension, he is still under contract for the next two years. But then Ethan, if you were to, if you were to keep him around without giving me the extension, he's disgruntled. Things get really tough. Like there's no road forward to that, right? You either attend them or you trade him, right? Like you can't just keep him around under the current deal and expect him not to be disgruntled and want to leave. I agree with you. And that's a, that's a core point. Like that is, that, that plays into this. Like you can't have him unhappy. You can't. I mean, we've already had the situation where, you know, the emo Jimmy thing at the beginning of this year, which was funny. I mean, I love, you know, I love seeing that picture the whole year. But with every joke, there's a hint of truth, right? Like he was mocking the fact that everybody thought he should be upset about what happened this offseason and not getting dame. He actually put out that IG video, remember where he was kind of about investigating the league or I can't remember the specifics of this. So don't quote me, but it was funny. The tamp was about tampering or something. Right. The whole tamper, right? Yeah. So, you know, but, but the reality is like you, if you're going to bring him back in a situation where it's now public, okay? And I had a feeling this was going to go public in the first couple of days and that Anthony or Ira would talk about it. We've hinted it on the podcast as well. You can't then bring him back without an extension. I don't think. And I think, I think that if I were in his camp, I would count on that. I would count on the fact that the heat to a certain are kind of over a barrel here. And we talk about the dolphins, kind of like the dolphins are over a barrel with to it. Like, you got it. I mean, he's not going to act out the way that Jimmy would might act out. Obviously, totally, totally polar opposite personalities, but also like you don't have another option at that position and you don't want your quarterback being a lame duck and as your leader. So, in both situations, like there are just certain things as an organization you have to do. I just am asking the question and we'll get to this on the other side of the break. I'm asking the question, okay, if you're going to do that, again, what is your expectation level of Jimmy? And how do you enforce it? How do you enforce him playing 60 to 65 games and playing at least 40 of them at a high enough level that you can get a top seed that you need to be in? All right, so let's get to our sponsor here and then we'll get to that as well. Enjoy all your favorite sports like never before at BetMGM. Sign up using code mountains and receive up to $1,500 back in bonus bets. 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He has a player option for the year after so he's really under contract for two years, because worst case he'd opt into that most likely. Okay. Let's say that he's a let's say that he's a free agent right now. What's he commanding? Let's say let's say that you're the Philadelphia seven. Let's say you're the Orlando Magic. Okay. You're the Orlando Magic. You were a rising team. You kind of need a wing with his kind of toughness, grit, playoff pedigree, et cetera, but you're close. Like, I mean, you've got Apollo, you've got Franz, you've got some decent backward players like the Suggs, et cetera. They're looking at Paul George. That's the room. That's the rumor. What if Jimmy Butler was a free agent right now? If you're the Orlando Magic, what are you giving him? I think you've backed me into a corner because I think they don't they give him a max in that scenario. Now, obviously that scenario does not apply to every team. It's got to be a team in a very specific situation, needing a wing with playoff caliber and experience, right? Who, yeah, he's on the tail end, but he has shown superstar abilities. So I think certain teams would give him what he wants. Do you argue that? How do you feel about it? How many years? That's the question. Two, not more than two. But two, the two starting next year, right? So two starting next year. Yes. Yes. So let's say, not into 37 into 36. Okay. So really the issue here is that last year, right? It's the years. Yeah. It's a year because I would agree. And remember, they went year to year with Dwayne, right? They gave Dwayne a one year in 2015. Dwayne was younger than Jimmy is now, by the way, although Dwayne was not Dwayne healthy, which was rare because he was still dealing with a knee situation was not at the level that Jimmy has shown in the past couple of years in the postseason. I want to be fair about that, even though, and then Dwayne had a very good 15, 16 season and there was a purple shirt guy thing and everything else. And he kind of had a, you know, a bit of a resurrection and a different trainer and a whole bunch of things happened then. But he was, I'm not going to claim that Dwayne at that stage was what I think we expected Jimmy to be in this postseason. So I want to be fair to Jimmy about that. But they did go year to year. I mean, they were going, they gave him the one year, 20 million, and then they looked at it again in 16, and then it was 16 that he got offended and left. I think that most teams would give Jimmy a two year max starting now. Yeah. I don't think they would give him a three year max starting now. I think that's, I think that's where we're getting into this. And again, that is the extension, basically, because I don't care about the year. And this is getting misinterpreted on Twitter, because again, they're not realizing that they're ripping up a player option, even though Anthony explained that not everybody is behind the Herald Paywall. They're not understanding that they're ripping up a player option and essentially just giving him an extra two or three million dollars that year. Or that's what he would be looking for. It's the year after. And I guess the question that he fans could then throw at us is, well, couldn't you flip that contract in the last, I mean, you flipped Kyle's deal, right, which was 30. This is almost twice as much. But is anybody taking a 55 to 57 million dollar or 58 million, as you say, 58 million dollar, you know, expiring contract so that they can go get other pieces at that stage? If Jimmy, at that stage is unplayable, which I don't know if he's going to be or not, considering again, the wear on the tires and the way he's had to carry the heat the past couple of years. Well, so I got a question for you, because if we, it seems to me like the only viable options here are to give him the extension he seeks or to trade him. Like you can't expect him to play disgruntled without a new deal. And maybe if you don't offer him, you know, that extension that he wants, then he would ask for a trade anyway. Right now, what would Jimmy's trade value be? Like how much are you getting back for him, knowing what he is capable of, but the most important thing being the mileage in the age? Well, again, I think we get back to what kind of team are we talking about? Yeah, I think that I think there are certain teams that would highly value what Jimmy Butler can still provide. And I'm seeing in the comments that I have some weird thing against Jimmy. Jimmy to me is a top five player in Miami history. It's not about that. It's not, it's not a, there's no, there's no resentment towards Jimmy. They are nowhere near where they've gotten over the past few years without Jimmy Butler. Okay, and I honestly, he amuses me as someone to cover. So, and for me at this stage of my life, it's all about entertainment value. So there's no issues. Oh, I'm with you. I remember when I had a lot of fun when I was covering the dolphins every day, I had a lot of fun covering Jay Cutler, and it had nothing to do with how, you know, when he came to the day, he was terrible. I enjoyed covering, when I would talk about how much I enjoyed covering Jay Cutler, he sucks. What are you talking? And I know that's not the case with Jimmy, obviously, but I understand the quirks when you cover a team day to day, sometimes certain guys are interesting to cover. Yeah, and he has been interesting to cover and he's provided more, and this is part of the thing here. He's provided more than we even thought he would provide, or that the heat even thought he would provide when they acquired him. So, this is not a resentment issue. I will say that all day long. They, he rescued this franchise. Okay, from the Hassan Whiteside era, from the Dark Ages. Okay. So, but this is projecting forward. And there's no question that paying him $58 million three years from now is going to be paying him for past performance. And so, I guess when we talk about a trade, it had, it would have to be a team A that would, that is close. Okay. I mean, you're not sending him to a non-contender. He's got no value there, and he's not going to be happy there, and no team that's going to trade from there. So, it is a team like in Orlando. It is a team like if OKC wanted to try to cash in. Like, let's say that you had a situation where they, they get to the next round, which I expect them to do. I think they'll beat Dallas or the Clippers. They get to the next round, and then, you know, they lose to Denver, Minnesota, which I think is a very reasonable possibility. They're a young team. I particularly if it's Denver, right? And, and you're they're looking at it, and Jimmy can be the guy to get them over the top. Like that there, that's attractive. Okay. But then again, you guys still got a match salary. You got to find the salary from there, or you got to find it from a third team. And, you know, and then you got to decide in the heat have to be comfortable with what they're going to ask for in that kind of situation because they're replacing a guy who has become, in a lot of ways, another franchise icon for them. So, I don't think it's a long list. I think there's a long list of teams that would be interested. I don't know if there'd be a long list of teams that would be a match with Jimmy's current contract. And by the way, if you acquire Jimmy, is he going to expect an extension from that next team? Exactly. Yeah. So, it has to be a team that's willing to do what the heat would not be willing to do. And I, you know, so that's another factor to consider here. And so, I think all of this is leading to this. Okay. And this comes in from Morgan Morgan on, on, on our Instagram page. I'm just doing on our, on our YouTube page. Make sure you check out our Instagram too at five reason sports. I think the most likely scenario is they given the extension. I agree. You've, I mean, I was leaning that way anyway. And then based on, you know, the last 29 minutes of conversation, like I was leaning 70% in that direction. Now, I'm 95%. Yeah. I think there, because I think it's, it's the path of least resistance here. I just, I think that I don't know that it's good business. But they've done things that they knew were not great business before. Let's go back to the Kyle Lowry acquisition. They knew the third year was going to be problematic for him. They knew he was not going to be playing at the level of his contract. They did it because that's what they had to do to acquire the player. There was interest from New Orleans, from Philadelphia, from some of these other teams. They had to do it. And you know, why else they did it? Because Jimmy wanted it. Yeah. And so I come back to this. They have operated over the past five years, doing what Jimmy wants. I have a hard time seeing them reverse course on that, even if you can definitely make a cogent argument that he's going to be a 20 million dollar player in the last year of his contract in the regular season, at least, and not a 50 million dollar contract. This comes in from Broom. Ethan, do you think they could talk to about pulling a Tim Duncan, at least make the extension affordable to help build the team better? Guys get their money these days. Yeah. Fair. Who's, who's taken less tradition? I mean, Dwayne did, it was a little exaggerated at times, but he was never the highest paid guy on the team. He did take less money at times. But really, Dirk and Duncan are the only two that sort of jumped to mind that just didn't get the max that they could get, right? Is that of like the last 20 years of stars? Yeah. I mean, obviously like, you know, people bring up, you don't as Haslam wasn't a star, but he was known for taking some sacrifices in his day. But out of like bonafide superstars, I can't think of another outside of Duncan and Dirk. Every time that we've hoped for this, it hasn't happened. I remember when Lebron was opted out in 2014, there was a lot of conversation. Well, Broom could take less money and help them build a better team around him. And his age, I got that email from his agents. Okay. Lebron James is not taking less money. I mean, it was like one of those simple emails I've ever received. Okay. And then everybody put it out the wind horse and everybody else put it out there that day. He's going to, he's going to take the max allowable. He just is. That's what these, that that's what these guys do. And look, I don't blame them. And I also know that the players association would not be comfortable with them taking less. That's that's a great point. I always, I always forget to bring that up. And you're 100% right, because then all of a sudden here, you're setting an example that I'm not saying this in a negative way. But you know, the players union does not want that example being set by any of their members. No, they've fought for these guaranteed contracts for a reason. They fought for these particular maxes for a reason. And you don't have a guy who's currently in what 11 different commercial campaigns. And it's going to be in the bad boys for movie, like being the example for a guy who took several million less. I just don't see that happening. So we'll discuss it more as we go forward. I know people have strong opinions about this one way or the other. My final thought on this is, if you're committing to this, if you're going to give Jimmy that additional year, it really is one year. Okay, if you're going to give him that additional year, if you're going all in on the Jimmy build, then you're going all in. Then at that point, you know, my discussion is about keeping Yovich and all the rest of this, I guess, becomes somewhat irrelevant. Because if you're going in on Jimmy, then you're going in on Jimmy, you got to get him the maximum help to win now, because you're committing to this particular build. But then Jimmy also needs to go in on you in the sense of, I just, I don't think a 55 game player gets you to where you need to go in the modern NBA. I do think seating matters. And I think that, you know, I think an expectation of again, at least 65, can we get to 65? That's the NBA standard rule. Can we get to 65? Can we maybe even get close to 70? And can those be played at the kind of level that gives this team a chance to get the right seed? All right, let's, let's close it up here. Alex, we appreciate it. Thank you. Thanks to our sponsors, Jersey's 305. Make sure that you check them out. They might have a vintage Jimmy Butler jersey in there and also check out the rest of the content on the YouTube channel and on five on the floor. We are going through the off season and we are officially in the off season. But we're also going to be ramping up all our Panthers coverage. So make sure you check that out, our guy Alex, I'm going to practice right now. We'll be doing more live shows. They're the team in town right now, because that won the plays at Marlin's Park. I'm not really familiar with them. Have a good one, everybody. Thank you for listening to the five on the floor on the five reason sports network. After all, someone needs to listen to my dad. Enjoy all your favorite sports like never before at Bet MGM. 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