Just a few weeks back, the Miami Heat handed Jimmy Butler a seven-game suspension due to ‘conduct detrimental to the team.’ This came after the disgruntled star publicly expressed a desire to be traded out of South Beach. Butler may have made his return to the Heat, but he is still finding ways to create havoc.
On Wednesday afternoon, Butler reportedly missed the team’s flight in preparation of their brief two-game road trip. These type of actions immediately resulted in a second suspension, as top NBA insider Shams Charania was the first to break the news.
Butler’s commitment to making things as ugly as possible was displayed once again with his failure to aboard the team flight. Now the organization has a reason to keep him away from the Heat for this brief road trip without pay.
The Sun Sentinel’s Ira Winderman iterated that Miami canceled practice on Wednesday morning last minute, which led to the team taking an earlier flight. Still, everyone else on the roster made it with no other issues outside of Butler.
This all transpires after the Heat forward provided minimal effort, or engagement with his teammates, over the last three games since his return from the first suspension. Butler is coming off a 13 points and 8 assists outing in Miami’s latest loss to the Portland Trail Blazers.
They were outscored by 19 points during his 27 minutes on the court.
Additionally, trending photos have appeared of Butler refusing to join the team huddle during timeouts. He has isolated himself from everyone involved, and the awkward tension can be felt as each game has gone by.
There could still be some light at the end of the tunnel. Charania also recently reported that the Heat have had “productive conversations” regarding an inevitable trade this week.
The fact that Butler couldn’t just lock in for a final run with the roster finally improving internally and deal with his contract situation over the summer is questionable, to say the least. Instead, he has made this painful for everybody involved— including himself.
Pat Riley and the front office will now be given around 72+ hours to work on finally ending this messy relationship with Butler. By the time his two-game suspension is up, the Heat will be playing on Monday back at home against the Orlando Magic.
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I can’t believe I am writing this.
Is this surprising to anyone else? It will get worse, and Butler will get more than his share and heavy doses of blame. The Heat deserves it, he should have been cut loose sooner. Still waiting for that trade? In life, you learn than it is ALWAYS better to cut your losses early rather than later and move on.
Latest news is that Butler willing to go anywhere except Miami and Memphis. If he next eliminates Milwaukee and Minnesota, that will cover all the Ms. Then we can move on to another letter.
Some thoughts:
(1) it feels like Riley is starting to enjoy this. And if I’m being honest, I’ve enjoyed the past month more than I enjoyed the first few months of the Heat season.
(2) That said, this is exactly the type of pissing match I was hoping the Heat would avoid. it hurts the team and makes everyone look bad.
(3) I’m starting to feel like this trade is going to happen soon
What’s going on with hhh? I’m having a problem getting in.
It’s insane! I pull it up on 2 tabs on ipad and 1 on phone and keep checking to see if one loads the site.
The site has been terrible at loading for a bit.
yeah I can’t even go straight to the site anymore, I have to google it and click on the name of the article
I love the site and discussion, but it really seems like nobody is minding the business.
For a while now it takes at least 30 seconds to load a site on computer. On phone goes a bit faster. I thought that I m the only one those problems.
Takes me almost 2 tries with like a minute loading time, then when I clear out an ad before it’s fully loaded… it takes me off the site .
I don’t know what’s funnier. The fact that he’s so upset that he’s ‘only’ making fifty million dollars this year and next year that he’s costing himself millions of dollars in fines? Or the fact that the Heat will let him play home games, but the they don’t want him on road trips?
Anyway, I’ve been saying that this BS has dropped him out of the top-5 Heat players of all-time and into the top-10. But if he doesn’t get traded by the deadline, and this goes on all season? I’m wondering if he’ll drop below Caron but stay ahead of Rasual as the 2nd best Butler in Heat history?
hes made an enemy of the miami fans. so pointless b/c he is trashing his trade value and his legacy
Like his namesake “butler” let’s serve his trash up to another team for something decent.
“Deadline is coming fast, trade this guy so Heat will last…” 🎶
“Wake me up when this Butler ends” 🎵🎶