When you're talking about effectively a 7 for 1 swap, there's just no practical way this kind of deal can get made. For Sacramento, now we need to fill a roster with two max players and no rookie contracts. Butler and Cousins is a solid foundation but are they going to lead a team of D-League callups very far? What's your fallback if it doesn't work out? You're out to pasture for the next half decade or more with no young talent coming in. It's a dangerous position to be in. For Chicago, you're giving up your one bankable star for a whole team of question marks. Sure maybe they've got 7 chances to land a new Jimmy Butler but nobody they're getting in return is an elite prospect (with the possible exception of Labissiere). If you already have Cousins you can develop the kids into a supporting cast but who is carrying your team out of this group? It just seems to me like it doesn't accomplish enough for either team. If Chicago is re-building they want top 5 talent not half a roster of long-shots. If we're building a contender we can't trade away our last 5 (!!) first round picks and another 3 future picks (counting the 2019 pick we already owe Philly) and expect to recoup that much talent in free agency. I like Butler but I'm not sold on him as the answer for us to the point that I'm going to go this completely all-in on the gamble.
All valid concerns.
I guess from my point of view, I'd probably toss Barnes into the deal as well. They have the roster spots and can choose to waive his expiring contract if they would like. If we waive Afflalo & Tolliver, that leaves us with $20.6 mil in cap space (assuming Gay opts in while he rehabs & factoring in Collison's cap hold). We could use that to resign Lawson & Casspi to two year deals and spend the remainder on some big man depth.
PG - Collison / Lawson
SG - Temple
SF - Butler / Gay
PF - Casspi
C - Cousins / Koufos
Then perhaps in the 2018 offseason, we can look to resign Koufos & Temple to big 1 year deals if they opt out. I'd even be willing to sign Gay to a 1 year deal. The reason being is that I'd want to setup our contracts to expire in the 2019 offseason (with the exception of Cousins & Butler) to give us max cap space in an effort to sign Bledsoe or Wall. Keeping guys like Koufos, Temple, Gay, Casspi, Collison, & Lawson signed through the end of the 2018-19 season would give us their bird rights. We'd more than likely have to give up bird rights on a couple of these players so the cap holds don't prevent us from signing a guy like Bledsoe or Wall, but we'd at least still maintain the flexibility to go over the cap to sign a lot of our own FAs while still adding a new one (Wall/Bledsoe). Wall/Bledsoe-Butler-Cousins would be a pretty strong big 3 and one that are all on the same time table (all of them are either 26 or 27 right now).
Probably a pipedream, but the combo of Cousins & Butler could be a great shot at becoming a great team, and it could even give Cousins' buddies a little more incentive to sign with us during the 2019 offseason.
