It finally happened. On Wednesday, February 5th, the Miami Heat traded away Jimmy Butler for Andrew Wiggins, Kyle Anderson, and a first-round pick that is protected in 2025 and 2026 and would become unprotected in 2027. The Golden State Warriors also gave up Dennis Schroder, but he ended up in Detroit as part of the five-team trade. However, several events took place before reaching this point.
The Miami Heat had to take a stand. They were forced to suspend Jimmy Butler three times due to his conduct. The last was an indefinite suspension after Butler walked off the practice court after hearing that the team was planning to bring him off the bench. Butler has a history of causing off-court issues, which the Heat were aware of when they signed him in 2019, but things had gone relatively smoothly until recently.
So when did the issues begin? To answer that, we need some context. I'll start by saying that Heat fans are incredibly grateful for Butler; he's the third or fourth-best player in the franchise's history and had a fabulous run that surpassed most of our expectations. Before signing Butler, the Heat were in a dubious position. The post-LeBron years hadn't gone too smoothly; Dwyane Wade was aging out, eventually left and returned as a bench player, and Chris Bosh was forced to retire due to blood clots.
The team avoided the bottom of the Eastern Conference due to Erik Spoelstra's coaching and drafting well, but it also lacked a star. They had missed the playoffs in three of the five seasons since LeBron's departure but were never bad enough to land a high draft pick, so they were in an unusual position.
When Butler arrived, there was no doubt the Heat would be a playoff team, but championship aspirations were low. At that point, Bam Adebayo was a third-year player who had mainly been coming off the bench, Tyler Herro was a rookie, and Goran Dragic was on the wrong side of 30.
However, against the odds, the Heat would reach the NBA Finals twice in the following four seasons, in 2020 and 2023, and were one victory away from a third trip in 2022. The Heat pushed LeBron and the Lakers to six games in 2020 as the fifth seed, but the most incredible run came in 2023. The Heat made the playoffs through the play-in as the eighth seed. They defeated the one, two, and five seeds on their way to the finals but were outmatched by the Denver Nuggets in five games. Seeding seems to matter less now than it ever has in the NBA, but what makes the Heat's runs so unique is the fact that nobody expected them to happen. 2022 is the only year since 2016 that Miami has been above the fifth seed, yet they made more NBA Finals appearances in the last five years than many franchises ever have.
Jimmy Butler is a massive reason for that. While Butler was already a perennial all-star level player, his game reached a different echelon in the postseason. During the 2020 NBA Finals, he raised his averages to 26.2 points, 8.3 rebounds, and 9.8 assists. He did so while barely resting, averaging 43 minutes per game. In Game 3, he had one of the most incredible finals performances in Heat history, keeping the series alive with a 40-point triple-double. His playoff run in 2023 was even more legendary; he averaged nearly 38 points per game in the first round against the first-seeded Milwaukee Bucks and set a franchise playoff record with 56 points in Game 4.
Even though Butler failed to capture a championship with the Heat, it raises a significant question.
How does one measure success in sports? Individual sports like tennis and golf have tens of yearly tournaments. European soccer has two or three cup tournaments on top of the league season, giving players multiple opportunities at silverware. In American sports, however, it's all or nothing. One championship per season, that's it. It's the simple yet overlooked reason so many greats of their respective games have little to no silverware. Charles Barkley, Karl Malone, John Stockton, Steve Nash, Chris Paul, Russell Westbrook, Joel Embiid, James Harden- the list goes on of all-time great NBA players with no titles to show for it.
So no, Butler did not win a title in Miami, but labeling it a failure? Let's be serious. If anything, Butler was a victim of his own success. The Heat's constant overachieving in the postseason with inferior personnel gave Pat Riley and the front office a false sense of security. Riley felt the team was good enough to "run it back" and was reluctant to trade pieces such as Nikola Jovic, Jamie Jaquez Jr, and Duncan Robinson (all players I like, for the record) for more star power. The front office still made changes to the roster; they signed Kyle Lowry in 2021, albeit to a ridiculously large contract, and traded for Terry Rozier last season, but these moves paled in comparison to the moves other contenders in the East, such as Boston and New York, were making.
Butler is the Heat's last star-level acquisition. They missed out on Kevin Durant, Donovan Mitchell, and Damian Lillard, all of whom were heavily linked with a move to South Beach. Lillard even explicitly stated that he wanted to be traded to Miami, yet it didn't happen. So, the front office did not do the best job of getting Butler the help he needed, but there's more to it.
Butler has garnered a reputation for coasting through the regular season, and he isn't exactly the most durable either. He did not play more than 64 regular season games in any of his years with the Heat due to injuries and load management. The comment that sparked the beginning of the end for Butler with the Heat came in last season's playoffs. The Boston Celtics eliminated the Heat 4-1 while Butler watched from the sidelines due to a knee injury. Butler later commented that he believes Miami would've defeated the Celtics had he been healthy. In his end-of-season press conference, Riley said, "If you're not on the court playing against Boston, or on the court playing against the New York Knicks, you should keep your mouth shut."
Riley and Butler's relationship reportedly hasn't been the same since this comment. It didn't help that his contract situation wasn't sorted, either. Butler wanted a max extension, but Riley didn't want to give it to him, understandably so. On top of having a history of clashing with franchise stars, Butler is 35 and would've cost the Heat nearly $60 million a season. He's not on the same timeline as the other younger key members of the roster, and the team isn't good enough to win a title as it is currently constructed.
That's why trading Butler made sense, but his behavior didn't help the Heat's position. Butler limited the Heat's options by giving a list of trade destinations, insinuating that he would not sign an extension if he were traded to a team not on his list. This meant the team trading for Butler would only have him for the rest of this season, so any trade negotiations quickly fell through. The Heat had very little leverage; everybody knew Butler wanted out, and time was running out. In the end, however, a deal was made. The Heat's return is solid if unspectacular, and Butler gets to join fellow aging star Stephen Curry for a chance to try and compete for the title.
The Heat can now focus on their younger core of Herro, Adebayo, Ware, and Jovic. Wiggins, Duncan Robinson, Rozier, and Jaquez will stay in the mix, but those first four will be the core moving forward. I fully expect the Heat to make the playoffs, especially in a top-heavy eastern conference, but a championship isn't on the cards for now. It's a new era and time to build for the future.
Even though it ended on a sour note, Heat fans will remember the Jimmy Butler era exceptionally fondly. We'll never forget his antics, good or bad, and the two Finals runs, especially the one in 2023. We'll always wonder if championship banner No. 4 would be up in the rafters had one more star joined him, but one jersey that will be up there one day is his No. 22, next to legends like Wade, Bosh, and Shaq.
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