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All of the people involved in this Jimmy Butler business are prideful, and justifiably so.
Pat Riley has been on — either as a player, assistant coach, head coach or top executive — nine NBA championship teams. And teams of which he has been a part have made 19 NBA finals. There have been only 78 finals in league history. That means Riles’ teams have been in a quarter of ‘em. Almost three decades after he came to Miami, his Heat organization remains, as he is, relentless and obsessed with winning, led by a coach in Erik Spoelstra whose tough love brand earns nothing but respect and accolades from players around the league.
Butler has earned everything he’s gotten in the NBA, coming from Tomball, Texas, to become one of the game’s great clutch players, a postseason force unlike most who have ever laced ‘em up. To mix sports metaphors, Jimmy Butler rakes in the playoffs. And if the Heat, who seem to have stabilized themselves after a rough start, make another postseason, a healthy Jimmy Butler would likely rake, again.
Unless … the Heat come to the table with the two-year, $113 million extension Butler has wanted for the last year. Which is not likely.
At the very least, the Heat are indeed seriously listening for the first time to trade offers for Butler, league sources said. Nothing has approached a serious offer yet, but even being willing to listen marks a change in where the team was when Butler almost willed them to a championship in 2023, before Miami was overwhelmed by Nikola Jokić and the Denver Nuggets in five games.
But Miami’s sober about its current state.
In 2023, Miami was a Play-In team that got hot at just the right time. Last season, it was … a Play-In team, that got smoked by Boston in the first round, with Butler sidelined by a sprained knee. This season, the Heat seems to have found something with Butler and Haywood Highsmith flanking Bam Adebayo in the back of Miami’s defense. But no one thinks Miami is on Boston’s level right now. And the whole point of Patrick James Riley’s professional life is to compete for championships, not the eight seed.
So if moving Butler brings back players that give Miami more of a shot, the Heat will engage. That likely means taking back players, rather than a deal featuring a bunch of future picks. Riles doesn’t do rebuilds. (Plus, he’s going to be 80 in March.)
They’re not there yet. But, they’re listening.
Butler is listening, too. He hasn’t asked to be traded from Miami, but if he stays, he wants the max.
He took to heart Riley’s admonitions after the Boston series, when he called Butler out for an appearance on a podcast in which he said if he’d been healthy, Miami would have beaten either the Celtics or New York in a first-round series.
So, Butler came to camp in even better shape than usual, and is averaging nearly 32 minutes per game, though he missed four games early in the season with ankle issues. He’s shooting 55 percent from the floor in 18 games, which would be a career best if it held up all season. He’s still drawing fouls, taking more than seven free throws per game. He believes he’s proving his worth on the court, and is setting himself up to play next season for big dollars. Could be Miami; could be elsewhere. It’s not that he’s ambivalent; all things being equal, he’d prefer to stay.
But … see above. And he does get that Miami has to find out what it could get for him, and that it could go either way.
Along those lines, don’t discount the possibility that Miami is not just trying to gauge the trade market for Butler, but also what it would cost to bring him back if/when he opts out.
No one other than Brooklyn would have the cap space to take Butler in via that route next summer. That’s not a likely destination for Butler, who wants to play for rings. So Miami’s play, if it wants to make a deal, would be the sign-and-trade route. Finding out what Butler’s market is now will also help the Heat determine whether to offer him, say, a free agent deal more like what the Paul George (four years, $212 million) got from the Los Angeles Clippers.
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