Chicago Bulls news: Jimmy Butler to meet with front office this week

After spending some time in Los Angeles training to be ready for next season, Chicago Bulls forward Jimmy Butler returns to Chicago this week to meet with the team’s front office heads, John Paxson and Gar Forman.

Since the Boston Celtics eliminated the Chicago Bulls in the first round of this year’s playoffs, forward Jimmy Butler spent his time in Los Angeles getting ready for next season. He also spent time talking to late night talk show hosts.

Now, however, the time to talk business is upon us. Butler returns to Chicago this week to meet with executive vice president of basketball operations John Paxson and general manager Gar Forman (aka GarPax).

Yes, they’ll talk about what happened this past season. More important, though, is the talk about the future. Butler needs to feel the Bulls have a vision of how to get back to contending. The last several seasons, even in former coach Tom Thibodeau’s final seasons, they never really seriously contended.

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What Butler needs to hear as well is that this game of “Will the Bulls trade Butler or won’t they” ends. For the last two seasons, Butler’s name was involved in numerous trade rumors. Some of those rumors involved the Celtics, the Los Angeles Lakers, and even the Thibodeau-led Minnesota Timberwolves.

All that needs to stop. GarPax needs to either 1) acknowledge that Butler is the best player the Bulls have had in quite a while and build around him, or 2) finally have the guts to let the fans know they are in a rebuild and trade him for multiple assets.

Paxson said Butler is a piece the team builds with. No, he’s a player the team needs to build around. If they don’t feel that way, then go ahead and trade him. Keeping him wondering just keeps the Bulls in a circle pattern, unable to advance.

The Butler situation is the biggest story of the Bulls offseason. Chicago Sun-Times reporter Joe Cowley wrote about how important his situation is:

"If Butler is still a Bull after the NBA draft on June 22, all indications are that Dwyane Wade will pick up his $23.8 million player option by the June 27 deadline, keeping him with Butler for another season. The Bulls are then expected to retain Rajon Rondo for $13.4 million.It starts with Butler, though."

Add Butler’s $17.5 million to the mix and that’s $50.7 million the Bulls spend on just three players, two of them on the downside of their careers.

This could be the offseason the Bulls completely change. Nikola Mirotic is a restricted free agent so the Bulls may let him walk. It the other three previously mentioned also leave, then this will be an entirely different-looking roster in 2017. That may not be a bad thing, though.

Next: How safe is John Fox's job?

Of course, the Chicago Bulls front office could just decide to bring everyone back and do this all again. Wouldn’t that be so much fun?

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