Rick Osentoski-Imagn Images It’s always tempting to chase stars, but the Spurs should stay the course instead of pursuing an expensive, volatile, aging player like Jimmy Butler. Jimmy Butler’s time in Miami will likely end soon. The talented but high-maintenance wing made his unhappiness with his current situation public and asked to be traded. In response, the Heat have suspended him and are looking to accommodate his request by fielding calls from interested franchises. The Butler situation in Miami was a ticking time bomb. He has a player option for next season that he reportedly intends to decline to seek a max extension. The problem is that Butler is 35 years old, the Heat are not a contender, and Pat Riley doesn’t award legacy contracts. If he let Dwyane Wade, the best player drafted by the franchise, leave instead of paying him after his prime, he would have no qualms about doing it to Butler. There have been some sparse rumors about the Spurs being interested in Butler and it’s been reported that he has no list of preferred destinations, so the question is, should the Spurs pursue him? The case for it is simple. Butler is still a star. Despite playing less and having a lower usage this season, his per-minute numbers are almost identical to last season’s and not too far away from the one that earned him an All-NBA second-team berth two years ago. He’s also a stout defender, a physical stopper who can guard several positions. There’s plenty of evidence that he raises his game in the playoffs, where he has routinely outplayed more heralded stars. Every team can use a shot creator who can also play off the ball, defend at a high level and step up in the big moments. The Spurs are not a contender at this point, but with Butler in tow, they should be a playoff team that could make some noise in the postseason. San Antonio also has the assets to get a deal done. It’s hard to gauge Butler’s trade value at this stage of his career and after another messy breakup with another franchise, but a trade with Devin Vassell as the centerpiece should get it done. The Spurs also have other veterans and players on good deals they could attach. There are no apron concerns at this point and paying Butler wouldn’t be a huge issue because Victor Wembanyama won’t get an extension for a couple more years and the rest of the cap sheet lacks any albatross contracts. if the goal is to speed up the timeline, adding veteran stars with experience in the biggest stages is one way to do it. It’s not how the Spurs should build their team, though. Pursuing Butler would be skipping steps, which is exactly what the franchise has fortunately avoided. It’s one thing to bring in some steadying veterans willing to defer like Chris Paul and Harrison Barnes, but Butler would demand a big role and tweaks to the offense. There are touches available in San Antonio but the attack is centered on Victor Wembanyama and that would have to change to accommodate Jimmy. If the Spurs were one piece away from serious contention, reducing the role of their franchise star would be a worthy sacrifice, and getting older as a team a sensible decision. But would Butler make them a top-tier team able to compete with the league’s elite immediately? It seems unlikely. Then there’s the baggage and the potential locker room problems. Butler will now leave his fourth franchise on bad terms. He hasn’t played over 70 games since his time in Chicago, but has always logged big minutes. He clearly just wants his max deal or at least a big extension and doesn’t seem to care much about who gives it to him. He’s clashed with teammates in the past, complained about his role repeatedly, and criticized coaches. Add all those factors and whoever gets Jimmy is getting an aging, high-maintenance star with a lot of miles on his body despite not being particularly durable who will get paid a third of the cap as he ages out of his prime and who might decide he’s not happy and complain his way out again, as he has multiple times in the past. A team with an old core and a win-now mandate or a franchise desperately looking for a shakeup might take that risk, but it makes no sense for the Spurs to do so. Butler might still have enough in the tank to get San Antonio to the top six in the West and past the first round, but it would be at the cost of all future cap flexibility. Eventually the front office will need to use its assets to make an upgrade but there’s no rush right now that the team has been performing well and forming an identity. Disrupting what has been working both on and off the court to add a past-his-prime star with a volatile personality and whose primary motivation is to get one last big payday could endanger a rebuild that has been going great so far. There are simply too many negative factors to consider. Someone will trade for Butler, everything might work out for them and everyone who decided to stay away from a legitimately great player instead of taking the risk will look foolish. That could haunt some franchises, but not the Spurs, which would still have a developing young core, one of the best players in the league, plenty of assets and cap flexibility to make a safer big move, and a relatively stable locker room. It would be foolish to jeopardize a good situation just to speed up a timeline that has delivered good results so far.