The Miami Heat don’t want to extend Jimmy Butler.
Jimmy Butler feels he’s worth an extension or a trade from the Miami Heat.
And what’s more, there are still wounds yet to be healed from Pat Riley to Jimmy Butler, and all this has come to a head over the last few days.
Sounds simple enough, right?
Butler has communicated to the Heat he would like a change of scenery, sources told Yahoo Sports. His first choice in all of this was to stay with the Heat with a contract extension in hand, but Riley has given no indication he’s willing to do that.
The matter of Riley calling out Butler following last season’s finish, basically telling him to “shut up and play,” hasn’t sat well with Butler — along with the insinuation from Heat officials Butler didn’t play hard against New Orleans on Wednesday in his first game back from an illness.
“I want to see me getting my joy back playing basketball,” Butler told reporters after Thursday night’s game against Indiana in which he exited with 1:54 left in the third and didn’t return.
”Wherever that may be, we’ll find out here pretty soon. I’m happy here off the court, but I want to be back to somewhat dominant, I want to hoop and I want to help this team win, and right now I’m not doing it.”
Does this mean the Heat will sit Butler and try to move him? Or sit him to show him who’s boss in Riley’s world? Either way, this is getting a bit ugly and it doesn’t have to be.
Butler is averaging 17.6 points, 5.5 rebounds and 4.7 assists in 22 games this season, shooting a career high 55.2 percent from the field on just 10.5 attempts per game.
His six-year stint with Miami is his longest since his first six seasons as a Chicago Bull, and he’s had stops in Minnesota and Philadelphia in between.
Neither party is good with the warm and fuzzy feelings, but this is a relationship business — and Butler has carried undermanned teams to two trips to the NBA Finals and was a hair short of a third in 2022.
In his last two playoff runs, a 39-game sample size, Butler has averaged 27.1 points, 6.8 rebounds, 5.3 assists and 1.9 steals on 48-35-82 splits. Of course he’s a headache and the ultimate mirror to whatever your organization is or isn’t, but the numbers say when he’s healthy, the return is well worth it.
From Butler’s standpoint, particularly in today’s second-apron world, he would feel much better entering his late 30s (he turned 35 in September) not having to deal with the treacherous world of unrestricted free agency, as there aren’t many teams with cash on hand come July.
The teams who could have money, or even move money, aren’t close enough to competing to make it worth Butler’s while — at least not now.
For Miami, it doesn’t want to commit big money in the same restrictive tax apron world to a player who’s had issues with availability the last few years. And Riley had no problem letting Dwyane Wade walk in free agency, not giving LeBron James carte blanche back in their day, and trading Shaquille O’Neal when the big man was on the back end of his career.
But what are the Heat without Butler? The franchise is well-regarded, and head coach Erik Spoelstra is thought of as one of the two best coaches in basketball, routinely doing more with less.
His main cog in that has been Butler, and the Heat have tried to make a Big Three out of Butler, Bam Adebayo and Tyler Herro. They are talented, but the conference has gotten considerably tougher at the top in recent years with the Celtics and Knicks loading up, while the Cavaliers have grown internally.
The Heat didn’t acquire Damian Lillard when he wanted out of Portland, or Donovan Mitchell when Utah had him on the trading block, or Bradley Beal — and to be fair, not every team was willing to chat seriously with Miami. The Heat have kept their powder dry, preferring to focus on their own development, but it’s kept them in a spot where they’ve had to overachieve.
Doing just enough is no longer enough, and if Butler saw Paul George get a full max — a player he’s comparable to and even more playoff accomplished than — one can see how he wants to show a new employer he’s worth the market value he’s asking for.
Butler is due $52 million next season, but it sounds like he’ll surely opt-out for a longer contract with more guaranteed money, if not a lower yearly salary. Over the summer, Philadelphia tried to engage Miami on a Butler deal before agreeing to terms with George — Joel Embiid wanted a reunion with Butler and pushed for it, according to sources who spoke to Yahoo Sports over the summer and recently.
It’s easy to see that max slot occupied by George could very well have been Butler’s.
Butler hasn’t given the Heat a list of preferable teams, at least not yet, but one would think Phoenix, Dallas, Houston and Golden State are at or near the top of the list. If one believes Butler is a handful in one way, he’s pretty amenable on the floor. He’s a plug-and-play star who can fit in virtually anywhere, even with the 3-point happy Warriors if they want to make a run at truly giving Stephen Curry a running mate during his golden years.
Making a deal work and worth it for the Heat could be difficult, as the franchise has never truly embraced rebuilding and sits in the sixth spot in the East at 17-15.
Riley telling the vocal Butler to hush was probably the first sign this relationship was headed for a divorce, but there was time to clear the air and move forward for the sake of this season.
To this point, it hasn’t been the case and the noise seems to be getting louder in South Florida.
Crazier things have happened. Butler and Riley could live to coexist in the meantime — truth be told, Riley doesn’t have to do anything as Butler turns up the heat on the Heat.
Neither is uncomfortable being uncomfortable, which means this could lead to a long standoff or something that mercifully ends very quickly if Butler has his way.
Either way, it appears this relationship has run its course, a mark of the new economic reality of the NBA and perhaps an inevitable conclusion of the immovable force linking with the unstoppable object.
