He is the second best player on that team right now. They will move whoever they have to in order to clear space so they can match any offer sheet.
Bulls tried to extend him for something like 44M/4 Yr and he rejected them. They have 61 million on the books for next year for 7 players. Noah is a FA next summer - and he will want more than $13M he is currently making...
You can't keep 3 max players in today's NBA.. even Miami couldn't do it...
As for other teams - I guess he will have other offers, but I think we can make a pretty good pitch. We are a big market (not LA / NY but he is not going to either one of those), have a decent core and lots of draft picks. If we could max him out and S&T for a center (bradly + picks + trash for Hibbert?) we could have be a contender in the East with JB on board...
Of course you can keep 3 max players in today's NBA. I'm guessing you've heard of this little [awesome] team called the Boston Celtics (and obviously MIA was willing to pay LeBron if he wanted to stay, just as CLE is going to continue to pony up for their 3 maxes). It just severely hurts your ability to put secondary talent around them (notice our players outside the Big 4). And our guys were making 20+ million, not the ~15 million that Butler would receive for being in the league less than 6 years.
If the Bulls refuse to give him that much, their GM would be fired immediately. I mean, look at Jimmy Butler and then look at Gordon Hayward.
It's absolutely ridiculous to insinuate Chicago will let him go for flexibility reasons, especially considering they have absolutely none as long as Rose's contract is around (and not even Kahn would be dumb enough to trade for him).
If anything (assuming CHI was worried about money), it would make the most sense for CHI to get some SERIOUS assets or simply expirings and firsts for Noah before he commands his 20mil, and then stick with Butler who is cheaper, younger, and a better player.
Also, I'm pretty sure Noah isn't a FA next summer, he resigned more recently than that.