Jimmy Butler wasn't keen on a move to the Golden State Warriors prior to February's mid-season deadline, at least until such time the franchise was willing to hand him a massive new contract extension.
The veteran forward signed a new two-year, $111 million deal upon his arrival to the Warriors -- a contract that some fans are still finding difficult to accept despite Butler's enormous impact over the second-half of the season.
Whether rightly or wrongly, it proved the leverage that star players can have after being acquired and may have just played a role in the San Antonio Spurs having to fork out a maximum four-year, $229 million extension to De'Aaron Fox on Monday.
De'Aaron Fox wasn't about to take less than Jimmy Butler
Butler and Fox are very different players, but they hold similar statures within the league as guys who are not in the top 10 but somewhere between 15-30. Fox's regular season numbers have been better in recent years, yet Butler is the proven playoff performer who twice led the Miami Heat to the NBA Finals.
With Butler getting a max extension from Golden State, there was no way that Fox and his agent Rich Paul were accepting anything less than a max from San Antonio. The handshake agreement may have been in place from the time of the trade, remaining so despite the emergence of Rookie of the Year Stephon Castle and the acquisition of Dylan Harper with the second overall pick in this year's Draft.
The Fox extension has subsequently drawn some criticism across the league, with the Spurs now needing to fit all three guards into significant roles and that's before even mentioning the talented Devin Vassell.
The issue for San Antonio is that this is a four-year commitment and nearly $120 million more than what Golden State gave Butler, but it's also the reality of what you have to do when you've just traded two first-round picks for a 27-year-old in their prime.
The team doesn't have much leverage when they've just given legitimate assets away in the trade to acquire the star player. Some may view Butler as not being worthy of the extension he got, but the alternative for the Warriors was having him leave as a free agent just months after he arrived and after the franchise had given up Andrew Wiggins and a first-round pick.
The same now applies to the Fox situation as he was set to be a free agent next offseason, with the potential that his extension could age poorly and be a hindrance to what's otherwise looming as a dominant force in the Western Conference for the next decade to come.