Jimmy Butler, the NBA’s Most Improved Player in 2014-15, signed a five-year deal worth $95.3 million with the Chicago Bulls on Thursday. The deal includes a player option for the fifth year.
Butler, also voted an All-Star for the first time, led the Bulls in scoring and was second in the NBA in minutes played per game, but he’s not resting on those accomplishments.
“He’s not taking a lot of time off,” his agent, Happy Walters, said in a Chicago Tribune interview.
Butler was a restricted free agent. Walters had visits scheduled with multiple teams, including the Portland Trail Blazers, Los Angeles Lakers and Boston Celtics. The Bulls, who made a qualifying offer to retain first right of refusal and match any contract Butler received, advanced talks on a maximum long-term contract and gave Walters the ability to scale back the deal – to three years or four – and keep the option of returning Butler to free agency at a younger age in play.
Butler can make $16.4 million in 2015-16 and returns to be a backcourt mate of former MVP Derrick Rose. Butler denied in a Rolling Stone interview that there is any feud, as rumors during the season suggested, with Rose. Walters said there is no feud.
“I do think Derrick has to maybe figure out how to use Jimmy because they haven’t played that much together and Jimmy made such a big jump offensively,” he said.
First-year coach Fred Hoiberg said last month he is excited to mesh the talents of Butler and Rose along with a smaller lineup capable of being a high-scoring team in the new offensive system following multiple seasons of grinding in Tom Thibodeau’s offense.
“Jimmy likes Chicago. He wanted to be there,” Walters said. “And he has an option after four years and will still be 29 or 30 (when the Bulls deal ends) and can get back to the table one last time. He’s happy about this deal.”