At this juncture of the offseason, there isn’t much player movement left, as teams have mostly settled in and finalized their moves in free agency. (Of course, the Golden State Warriors are the exception to the rule, as they are still yet to make a move in free agency because of their inability to resolve the Jonathan Kuminga situation.) But a few days ago, the Miami Heat made at trade, sending Haywood Highsmith to the Brooklyn Nets for a second-round pick to get underneath the tax line — drawing the attention of Draymond Green in the process.
Green, who has clearly bonded with Jimmy Butler ever since the Warriors brought in the six-time All-Star in a trade back in February, used this opportunity to defend his co-star while shading Heat fans in the process.
“Y’all(internet experts) wanted Jimmy to come off the bench behind dude [Highsmith], and 5 months later The Heat traded him for a bag of chips. That’s wild,” Green wrote on his official account on Threads.
It’s not quite clear who Green is referring to and whether or not there were really Heat fans that were asking for Butler to be benched in favor of Highsmith. But what’s clear is that back then, Heat fans were getting fed up over Butler’s behavior, when he did everything but actually pull off the trade himself just to piss off the Miami front office and goad them into trading him away.
Perhaps there were some Heat fans who wanted Butler to be humbled and know his place, and perhaps promoting Highsmith to the starting lineup at his expense would have done that. But the Warriors forward may be stretching the truth a bit in the name of brotherhood.
Warriors forward Jimmy Butler burned Heat bridges
Butler is forceful, and he wants to get his way regardless of how he does it. When he wasn’t able to get his contract extension from the Heat, he became very difficult to deal with until he got his desired trade to the Warriors — a team that joyfully gave him the contract he so desired.
He became such a beloved figure in franchise lore that seeing him go out like that just so he could get one last big payday certainly broke the hearts of thousands of Heat fans. Nonetheless, the Heat are happy to move on with their lives, and so is Butler, who thrived following his arrival on the Warriors.
