Less than 24 hours after he requested a trade away from the team, the Miami Heat have suspended star forward Jimmy Butler for seven games for multiple instances of conduct detrimental to the team, the team announced Friday.
Here is the full statement:
“We have suspended Jimmy Butler for seven games for multiple instances of conduct detrimental to the team over the course of the season and particularly the last several weeks. Through his actions and statements, he has shown he no longer wants to be part of this team.
“Jimmy Butler and his representative have indicated that they wish to be traded, therefore, we will listen to offers.”
The Heat’s seven-game suspension will take them through their upcoming six-game road trip, which ends Jan. 15. That trip begins on Monday, Jan. 6, against the Sacramento Kings followed by the Golden State Warriors, Utah Jazz, Portland Trail Blazers, Los Angeles Clippers and Los Angeles Lakers.
They also play the Jazz on Saturday, the last of their current three-game home stand.
As a result of being suspended, Butler will miss out on approximately $2.4 million–or $346K per game for each one missed, according to ESPN Front Office insider and former NBA executive Bobby Marks.
Both Jimmy Butler and the Heat being away from each other for two weeks–at the bare minimum–is the best possible solution for each other while this mess is potentially sorted out. Given the NBA’s new rules about intentionally resting players, while this was a rare circumstance, Miami almost had no choice but to suspend him.
This seven-game suspension allows the team to play without any distractions for the time being. Butler doesn’t want to play with him; multiple players were put in an uncomfortable position to answer questions, so who knows how much they want to play with him after the last 24 hours.
It’s the best for both parties. I’m still dubious about a trade happening, but never say never.
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All NBA players, and stars especially, are big personalities, otherwise woundt made the league. A lot of big egos involved there, for sure. And we shouldn’t forget, from where a lot of those players came.
For a lot of them, the first instinct is to confront, when something is not going their way. It wasn’t the first time, there was a public confrontation between Spo and Jimmy a year ago.
So I understand, why Jimmy behave like that.
Riley was a player, coach and now he is a GM. He knows how things are. He will do, what is the best for team. I understand him too, why he is doing what he is doing, including last year comments of Jimmies amiability and trolling. It was the right thing to say.
So, there is a life without Jimmy and very probably a good player as his replacement.
I m happy with that, I like the team we have. This team is good enough to make PO directly in the east.
The only question is, if there makes sense, if the trades of other more expensive players makes sense right now, like Dunc and Rosier.
Briefly breaking my hiatus for this.
First, my questions…was it Jimmy’s fault entirely for playing less regular season games due to injuries? Was there a private, personal discussion between Riley and Butler how to handle their “stalemate” negotiations? Is it true Jimmy requested several times to get “help” to add A-listers to the roster?
Second, my personal take….Pat was trying to avoid a DWade part 2. In a sense he did, but now it actually looks like another case like that. My position is always to have the benefit of the doubt with all parties involved and we could only guess what exactly happened during their impasse that lead to this. So i dont want to put blame up front unless Riles and/or Butler’s side clear things up publicly. One thing’s for sure is that a not-so-good side of Jimmy resurfaced. Philly. Minnesota. Remember? He should’ve kept quiet and now he’s just like the rest of ‘em. Publicly ranting and wanting out. I don’t think Riley short-changed the guy, he just mainly considered the good of the team and so Butler might’ve felt unwanted, but again we can only guess. This is ugly but it happens. Even to the best organizations. That 7 game suspension for me is a bit too much. Who knows, both sides might talk it over and Jimmy will have a change of heart. Unimaginable? 11-31 going 31-11 and 8th seed to the finals, that’s unimaginable. *sigh* GO HEAT!
Very rarely would I be on the players side against management in any sport but this time I am. The Heat let Jimmy down as far as getting him support. It is complicated because Jimmy pushing for Lowry did limit the Heat.’s ability to make trades for some time. But, trades still could have been made (and really, how stupid is it for an GM to listen to his player)and really not much got done this last offseason. Now Jimmy has to play on a mediocre at best team with no chance of getting deep in the playoffs in what may be his last high impact season. I don’t blame him for wanting to win in his last chance. As I have made my views very clear, I come down more on Pat who got little to nothing done in 23 or 24. And if you really examine his moves in 21 and 22, they were also largely ineffective. Yes, Jimmy carried us farther than anyone expected those years, which I still say, covered up the lousy job Pat did in getting us a third scoring option . Pat didn’t have to get a superstar, a Brandon Ingram level player would have been enough to get Jimmy, Bam, et al a ring.
That’s how I see it. Yes, Jimmy finally gave up on this team, but only when it was obvious how far from a championship we are. To me, that’s on Pat and I think when the dust clears, many will only appreciate Jimmy for all he did for us fans. He had the strongest will to win I have ever seen in a player and accomplished amazing things. Good luck to you Jimmy and I hope you find a better situation.
As for us, let the rebuild begin. And no more running it back, no more staying Pat. Wake up and do the job your paid to do Pat. Or move on if you can’t handle it anymore.
Jimmy has had an all-star teammate almost every year he’s been on the Heat. (Bam). He also has Tyler Herro, who will probably make the all-star team this year.
Dame Lillard never had a single all-star teammate.
Nicola Jocic never had an all-star teammate.
I appreciate Jimmy and everything he did for this Heat. I currently have him tied with Shaq as the 5th best Heat player of all-time.
But this narrative that the Heat owe Jimmy something is nonsense. The Heat won multiple titles in multiple eras without Jimmy Butler. Jimmy never even made the Conference Finals without the Heat. GTFOH with that nonsense.
I mean, within Jimmy’s tenure, Pat brought in Kyle Lowry, Victor Oladipo, and Terry Rozier. None of them ended up living up to the hype for various reasons, but I’d put all of them in the same tier as Ingram. It’s a make-or-miss league, and sometimes you just get a bad bounce.
I agree on VO. He would have given us the third option if he didn’t get hurt. Lowry was almost washed up by the time he came. He only had a few decent games. Rozier is close, but not quite good enough.
I think you’re doing a little “hindsight is 20/20” here.
For Lowry’s first season in Miami, he was still hitting about the same numbers as he had throughout his Toronto years. He just fell off a cliff in year 2, and never recovered. While player decline is expected once you hit your mid-30’s, Lowry’s rate of decline was an outlier. We should have had another 1-3 years before he dropped below 5 apg and 10 ppg. Riley did his job there, but sometimes things just don’t work out.
As for Terry, age shouldn’t be a factor and he was a consistent 20ppg guy in Charlotte. His production didn’t disappear like Lowry’s did, but the step back he took in Miami was unexpected for someone in his early-prime, and couldn’t have been predicted when we made the trade. If he just maintains his Charlotte numbers, then he’s our guy.
Like I said in another thread, the front office wasn’t perfect. But if your stated standard is “get a Brandon Ingram-level guy,” then they did that three times.
With all due respect I ain’t taking no sides, both pat, and Jimmy let each other down. Sure Riley could’ve tried harder to get other players, but it’s only so much you can do when you’re close to 2nd apron with not that much assets. Also you forget other teams didn’t respect are assets, nobody wanted herro, or Duncan last 2 or 3 years, and didn’t want no late draft picks. Also you’re forgetting this is a player driven league, it ain’t stupid listening to your star player because nowadays you gotta try to keep them happy or they will ask to get traded. I don’t agree with that but when you have a superstar, you gotta do what you can to make them happy. Jimmy wanted Lowry, and we got his best pal for him, even though he was washed. If anything Jimmy Should of kept his mouth closed, and let pat use that 30 mill to get a real 3rd option. Instead of an over the hill player. Additionally there more ways to attain players like free agency, but Jimmy ego is too big to take a paycut. Wade wanted to win championships so he took a paycut to bring in LBJ, and bosh. Why couldn’t Jimmy take a paycut to help us get someone good? Jimmy ego is so big dawg literally said he can turn any team into a contender, which is foolish. So you think he can turn trailblazers,hornets,wizards, or any other bottomfeeder team into a contender? That’s a bold face lie. All I’m saying is that Jimmy deserves blame too, not just Riley.
spo deserves blame also .for not playing ware and bam together.from day 1 when is he going to realiize bam is not a center.if those 2 played together this sht prob dont go down cause jim seeds 2 big dawgs playing togetherwith him at sf might have been the best frontline in nba..also jim knows whos a dawg and who isnt and spo plays to many non ballers.terry ty jim ware bam are 5 bonafide ballers but he has to get his 15 million $ man some pt and hh who can defend but more often scores 4 pts a game.cant blame jim for being disgusted with the team but he handled it very unprofessionally
I beg to differ with you about a couple of things.
Last year, Miami already had three 20 ppg scorers in Herro, Bam and Butler. What Riley did was add a fourth, Terry Rozier, who was scoring 23.2 ppg at the time of the trade. It cost Miami a first round pick plus a rapidly declining player, Kyle Lowry, on an expiring contract. As you will recall, Lowry was brought in on an $85M/3 year contract in 2021 at the insistence of his buddy, Jimmy Butler.
Unlike some team owners (e.g., Phoenix, Minnesota, Boston, Milwaukee, and until recently Golden State), the Heat’s owner, Micky Arison pays Riley to keep expenses below the second apron. Miami has the sixth highest payroll in the NBA, behind the four preceding teams, which are all over the second apron, plus New York, which is $535,000 under.
With over $160 million (85%) of the team’s money tied up in five players (Butler: $48.8M, Bam: $38.85M, Herro: $29M, Rozier: $24.9M and Robinson: $19.4M), there was less than $30M left to fill the remaining 10 roster positions. Riley didn’t have a lot to work with. He tried but was unable to trade for several stars over the past few years. I also understand Riley may have tried unsuccessfully to trade one or more players over the summer to create cap space, but was unable to get equitable returns.
Despite Miami’s financial limitations outlined above, Butler expected Riley to bring in a whale, (like Lillard, or Mitchell, or Beal, or Durant, or ?) while demanding maximum money in the future for his past performance (for which he had already been well paid). That sounds a little selfish to me, especially coming from a guy who publicly stated only a few months ago that he already had plenty of money and isn’t in it for the money.
I think Butler came to the realization last year that the team’s chances of having another playoff run like 2020 and 2023 was highly improbable, especially with the improvement of several of the young and veteran powerhouse teams around the league. He saw his chances of winning a championship with Miami were slim to none…and slim had already left the building.
Butler played the situation like a teenage boy who wants to break up with a girlfriend he has grown tired of. Rather than “manning up” and telling the girl he isn’t happy in the relationship, he acts like an @$$hole until he pisses her off enough that he forces her to break up with him. He gets the benefit of getting what he wants (a break-up) without having to deal with the guilt or responsibility of breaking the girl’s heart. “It wasn’t my fault. She broke up with me.”
It reminds of the lyrics in Tom Petty’s Free Fallin: I’m a bad boy ’cause I don’t even miss her. I’m a bad boy for breaking her heart … all the bad boys are standing in the shadows and the good girls are home with broken hearts.
I think Jimmy is like the bad boy and the Heat fans are like the girlfriend sitting home with broken hearts.
Nonetheless, however this drama ends, I appreciate everything Jimmy has done while he has been on the team and wish him nothing but the best of luck in the future. I’m sorry it had to end this way.
I think nobody is totally to blame or totally innocent. But to add to what BigGuy touched on, and though people don’t love talking about the CBA, it is a fact of life in this new NBA. So if you feel that Riley should have picked up this or that player, but don’t know if that would’ve worked within contractual constraints, it seems unfair to lay blame where it doesn’t belong. BG pointed out that teams did not want the packages we offered for their players. Now that’s where Riley does deserve some blame. The Duncan and Lowry contracts were really bad decisions. Not bad players – bad, really bad, contracts. Before that, it was Whiteside, Johnson (not to mention making him co-captain, good grief), and Waiters. So yes, Riley doesn’t have perfectly clean hands, but this new CBA, and the penalties it has, is a b*tch. It is why all analysts point out that Brooklyn is the only, or one of few, teams that can fit Butler in without trades because of these annoying aprons.
Really appreciate all the comments. Especially nice to hear from Alaska Emily. This was a very emotional time, a time when our dreams of getting another championship for Jimmy and the entire organization came to a crashing halt. I think all the commenters have parts of the truth, hubris, bad contracts, cap rules, players who didn’t work out, salary and player trade complications, and the GM did make some unideal moves.
Let’s just hope to usher in a new even more successful era, and continue to enjoy the ride.