BE A HOMETOWN HERO
Rockets’ sales pitch to Jimmy Butler should appeal to his local ties, chance for NBA glory
The Rockets’ sales pitch should be the easiest part.
Hey, Jimmy: Come home.
You can win your first championship in the city you were born in.
You don’t have to carry all the weight — we have James Harden and Chris Paul. But you can revel in all the historic glory.
Jimmy: Come be a Rocket. Be loved in your home NBA arena. Spend the best years of your career in Houston. We’ve wanted you for a long time. Now, be one of us.
Prying Butler from Philadelphia and keeping him away from two looming threats in Los Angeles will be the hardest part.
But the fact that Tilman Fertitta, Daryl Morey and Co. entered this weekend with a 50-50 shot at locking down one of the premier two-way players in the NBA is telling.
If the Rockets actually pull this off — with no real salary-cap money; with so many outsiders swearing two weeks ago they had no shot at Butler — it will instantly become a defining moment in Fertitta’s ownership.
The final decision obviously belongs to Butler. It’s his selfmade life. He’s still writing his story — and what a story it is.
Could go wrong or very right
Houston born. Tomball raised. Bouncing from home to home during his early teenage years. Converting skeptical believer after skeptical believer — and that was before he even became a backup on a Chicago Bulls team that belonged to Tom Thibodeau and Derrick Rose.
The Rockets want Butler. I mean, they really want Butler.
Last season, they were willing to give up four first-round picks for his passion and talent. As potentially the most explosive free-agency period in NBA history counts down to 5 p.m. Sunday, the franchise that has come so close since 2015 — Warriors, Warriors, Warrrrrriors — is willing to part with starting pieces Clint Capela and Eric Gordon just to make Butler a Rocket.
Wrap him in local red, just like Morey did Harden and Paul (and Dwight Howard).
Pay The Beard, CP3 and Jimmy Buckets about $111 million in 2019-20, all while knowing that three of the biggest and mostdebated names in a star-obsessed league could guide the Rockets together for the next three years.
It’s a fascinating threesome.
It’s also a risky gamble. It could end up as bad reality TV … or with the team’s first world title since 1995.
But know this: The Rockets even being in the middle of the Butler conversation comes down to their star power.
Morey has been perfecting this art — maneuvering, positioning, trading, talking, promoting — for years. As lesser franchises tank, rebuild and tank again, the Rockets collect stars and annually compete for the only trophy that matters.
Fertitta thinks in billions, not millions. While the Rockets were zeroing in on Butler as their dream free agent this summer, the second-year owner also was in the middle of a serious attempt to acquire Caesars Entertainment. The Las Vegas casino giant was eventually purchased for $17.3 billion.
“Daryl knows that you can go do anything you need to do to make our team better, to go spend whatever the league allows us,” Fertitta said last week, from the top of his Vegas meets Beverly Hills, Calif., Post Oak Hotel near the Galleria.
Paul is the head of the NBA Players Association. He’s also well known by a second name (Cliff Paul) and his nationally recognized image spends much of its free time standing inside your TV screen during cute, friendly commercials.
Harden, of course, needs no introduction. He’s the best offensive player in the modern game. He’s coming off the greatest season of his career. He has finished first or second in four of the last five NBA MVP awards, and still has a basketball ceiling he hasn’t reached.
Title has a ring to it
Harden. Paul. Butler.
Those three names could collect their first rings together.
Add in Mike D’Antoni, who’s also still searching for his first trophy and has long been a player favorite.
Backed by the Fertitta brand. Hometown team. Home city. Thirty-four miles from Butler's high school.
And … just when it starts to sound like perfect sense, Friday’s potentially earth-shattering news rolled in.
The Lakers already have the best superstar duo in the league, in LeBron James and Anthony Davis. Now, they’re reportedly set to meet with NBA champion Kawhi Leonard in a made-forHollywood power conference.
That should be another part of the Rockets’ sales pitch.
We need you, Jimmy. But you also need us.
This will be the best team you've ever played on. Together, we can take down all the other superpowers and win a championship.
In Houston.