Heat-76ers Sign-and-Trade Deal for Jimmy Butler on Hold Due to Wild Miscommunication With Mavericks
By Thomas Carannante
One of the blockbuster moves during Day 1 of NBA free agency hit a snag.
The Miami Heat and Philadelphia 76ers agreed to a sign-and-trade deal that would send Jimmy Butler to South Beach, but Pat Riley needed a third team to get in on the action to clear some salary.
The Dallas Mavericks were on board, but according to reports, there was a miscommunication regarding the players they would receive from the Heat, and now the Butler deal is on hold until another team agrees to get in the mix.
Goran Dragic is the player Miami is determined to move to make the Butler salary-cap math happen and believes it can find a workable trade construction elsewhere that ultimately lands Butler with the Heat on a four-year, $142 million max deal
— Marc Stein (@TheSteinLine) July 1, 2019
In an inexplicable turn of events, the Mavs were under the impression they'd be getting Kelly Olynyk and Derrick Jones Jr. from the Heat in this deal, but Miami thought Goran Dragic would be headed to Dallas, considering he's the guy they need to move to make the financials work. The Heat also don't want to trade Jones Jr., so we're really unsure how we got here.
If Dallas and Miami can't sort out the $1.7 million missing from this trade on the Heat end, Miami would presumably have to find a new trade home for Dragic to preserve the trade construction it prefers
— Marc Stein (@TheSteinLine) July 1, 2019
How does this miscommunication happen? There's nothing here that suggests there should've been any confusion, especially given the players each team thought would be on the move.
Then again, we're dealing with Mark Cuban and Pat Riley here. These guys are always trying to outsmart the competition, but it looks like their strategies repelled one another.