In recent days, there has been much trade talk surrounding Miami Heat star Jimmy Butler.
ESPN’s Brian Windhorst and Shams Charania reported near the start of the month that Butler has indicated to the Heat that he would like to be traded out of Miami.
However, NBA sources reportedly think it’s a “real possibility” that the Heat will call the 35-year-old’s bluff and keep him in Miami for the remainder of the season. Butler has a player option attached to his deal for the 2025-26 season and can enter unrestricted free agency in the summer should he decline his option.
“I have a healthy degree of skepticism that these deals make sense for all the teams involved largely because it’s hard to come up with a two-team deal that accomplishes everything Miami might be looking for,” The Athletic’s Sam Vecenie wrote. “I also started to wonder whether Miami calls Butler’s bluff and rides out the rest of the year with him on the roster. By doing so, the Heat could enter June with him on the books, and either get him to opt in to accept a trade somewhere or allow him to opt out and move on. That’s what the LA Clippers did this past summer with Paul George, and league sources believe it’s a real possibility that shouldn’t be discounted.”
Butler served the first game of a seven-game suspension that the Heat handed him for “conduct detrimental to the team” when Miami took on the Utah Jazz on Saturday. Unfortunately, it looked as if all the drama around the team right now impacted the Heat’s quality of play in a negative light.
Against a Jazz team that owns the second-worst record in the Western Conference, Miami didn’t play particularly well on either side of the ball. The Heat’s defense was nothing short of porous, as it allowed Utah to drop a whopping 136 points.
The team wasn’t much better on the offensive side of the floor, considering Miami mustered just 100 points while shooting 25.7 percent from 3-point range. Star big Bam Adebayo ended up with just four points and misfired on every one of his six shot attempts from the field. Star guard Tyler Herro also had an inefficient showing and finished with just 15 points.
The Heat certainly have gotten off to a suboptimal start to their stretch without Butler thanks to his suspension, and the squad’s next two contests will come on the road against better teams than Utah. Overall, the team is about to play six straight road games.
Miami will play the Sacramento Kings on Monday and Golden State Warriors on Tuesday in what could be a tricky back-to-back. The Kings and Warriors are both on winning streaks as they battle for positioning in the Western Conference.
Perhaps if the Heat continue to struggle over their next couple of games without Butler in the lineup, Miami will feel more inclined to hang on to the forward, at least until the end of the season.
