The 2024-25 Miami Heat season has long been over. The ending was so merciful that while we wish we could forget, it’s forever stapled in our memories like a bad dream.
The drama-laced Heat season was arguably the worst since the Big 3 with LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh. The Jimmy Butler saga–stemming from a contract extension he didn’t earn with Miami–was a huge piece of that, though we all know that they eventually traded him to Golden State in a five-team blockbuster while getting Andrew Wiggins, Davion Mitchell, Kyle Anderson and their 2025 first-round pick.
Miami was fortunate to get Mitchell, who will be a restricted free agent this offseason. It’s still not technically complete because of the uncertainty that looms ahead of next month’s draft, but the package looks more disappointing in hindsight.
While these playoffs further justified Miami’s angle about not paying their former star–allocating that much to an aging Butler would’ve crippled the Heat’s mediocre cap sheet–the Heat’s front office should not be absolved from criticism since they are right back to where they were pre-Butler: Purgatory, without many assets.
Heat front office was right not to pay Butler, but still deserves criticism:
Miami Heat president Pat Riley said this during his exit interview regarding Butler–taking some accountability for how it was handled.
“There’s no doubt that what happened with Jimmy had a tremendous impact on our team,” Riley said. “There’s no doubt about it. So the buck stops with me. I’ll take that hit if you want it.
“No, I’m not going to apologize for saying no on the contract extension when we didn’t have to. And I don’t think I should. … It’s over. He’s done. I wish him well. Good luck to him and I hope deep down in his heart somewhere, he wishes us well too.“
The consternation stewed over the fact that Riley preferred Butler prove his worth on the court before giving him a two-year max extension. Butler evidently “lost his joy” and, three suspensions later, was headed to The Bay in February. Golden State subsequently gave him the extension, he re-found his “joy,” and that was all she wrote.
Except that wasn’t the case. Golden State was quite successful with Butler, Draymond Green and Stephen Curry together, going 27-8 despite climbing only two spots in the West standings. Though they didn’t acquire him for the regular season, they acquired Butler to compete for a title with one last “hoorah” for Curry. But after Golden State’s superstar missed all but 13 minutes due to an injury, they crashed and burned out of the West semis in five to Minnesota.
For most of the series, outside of Game 3, Butler, 35, felt invisible on both ends. He was dealing with a pelvic contusion, in all fairness. But he ultimately failed to look even close to the Robin to Curry’s Batman … except the lead star was unfortunately sidelined.
Butler was the superhero in Miami for a half-decade, carrying the Heat to three Eastern Conference Finals and two NBA Finals appearances in five seasons. He was a folklore in the postseason, a mythical hero and one who saved the franchise from purgatory.
Except the Heat have been trapped in mediocrity for three straight seasons, which was why I was always trepidatious about rewarding him with a lofty extension when the supporting cast wasn’t very good. He hasn’t lived up to his “Playoff Jimmy” moniker or has been anywhere near as consistently effective as he was in 2022 since injuring his ankle in Game 1 of the 2023 Eastern Conference semis.
That’s where the front office comes in. Miami has been one of the most successful organizations for three decades with unparalleled continuity. They have an elite scouting department–headed by Adam Simon, the vice president of basketball operations–with a high-end developmental program that developed an unprecedented number of unlikely stories.
That’s also part of the problem, however. Why rely on undrafted talent as opposed to legitimate talent?
Not every front office is perfect, though it botched the tail-end of the Butler era with asset mismanagement and not trading away the star when they knew they weren’t going to pay him.
I’ve admitted I was wrong about the latter; last offseason, I shared a similar mindset to them: Coming off the worst injury of your career, when your trade value is likely at its lowest, prove that you’re worth $50+ million per year. Well, I was wrong. Miami was wrong. His trade value tanked, and everyone may have avoided a whole fiasco in the process.
They also didn’t do a good job managing assets.
The Heat let Gabe Vincent walk out the door at an inexpensive cost for nothing; Caleb Martin saved them from themselves and they made a mistake by trading a future first-round pick onto Kyle Lowry’s expiring contract for Terry Rozier (another that I was very wrong about, in hindsight). They flushed all of its second-round picks through 2031 down the toilet, officially trading last two in the Butler deal and most of their trade assets … aren’t great?!?
They didn’t do a great job building around the fringes during Butler’s last few seasons with the Heat, point blank. We could argue about who they should’ve grabbed. But his window wasn’t maximized, point blank.
Again, no front office is perfect. A saying I say often is that it’s easier to general manage in hindsight, but it’s also a requisite to have enough foresight so poor mistakes aren’t made one way or another. The Heat front office isn’t bad–they had enough foresight with Butler’s extension (or lack thereof)–but there’s a reason why they’ve been trapped in purgatory for three years.
As we transition into this next phase post-Butler, let’s just hope they’re able to restock the treasure chest so they can build a contender instead of unloading more of the team’s future into a rudderless ship.
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I think people are tooting their horns a little much as well, did he not have some illness on top of the pelvic contusion?
It’s an illness called “being 35.” When I turned 35, I wasn’t any good at being a professional basketball player, either.
I didn’t hit the wall until I was 36-37. But I know what you mean. Now I’m twice that and the only thing that hasn’t gone completely to sh** is my sarcasm and the only thing that hasn’t fallen off is my head. Such is the life of a wanna be GM. (j/k)
Yes, he was definitely not fully healthy. He played very well with the Warriors after the trade. He deliberately played very poorly with the Heat before the trade. Karma is a b. The Heat have some real challenges ahead of them. Al least we don’t have 3 main players 35+ years old with 2 years left on their contracts.
Don’t forget the 22 year old SF/PF stud with much untapped potential that Kerr tried to conceal before free agency. Now that the entire NBA has seen Kuminga play at an elevated level, Golden State will need to overpay him to keep him, while trying to avoid being “hard capped” for going over the second apron. If they are lucky, maybe they will be able to work out a sign & trade.
The cycle repeats: Tim Hardaway had the most success of his career in Miami. Alonzo Mourning had the most success of his career in Miami. Shaq doesn’t support my narrative so I’m going to ignore him. Lebron James had the most success of his career in Miami.
And now we see that Jimmy Butler has had the most success of his career in Miami.
The Miami Heat: it may not be your favorite place to be, but we will squeeze the absolute most out of you.
A lot of scuttlebutt about the Heat trading for a disgruntled Giannis. Including Herro in such a deal makes sense. He’s from Milwaukee area and has a large following there. If you include a couple of “throw-ins” and a couple of draft picks… “Voila!” Miami can bump Giannis down to SF. Then all is needed is a good SG (preferably two-way). De Jounte Murray comes to mind. With Murray and Michell hounding the opposing back court and Ware, Bam and Giannis dominating the frontcourt and protecting the paint, Miami could be very competitive.

P.S. A girl can dream, can’t she. (written for Emily)
Hell no sunman Giannis Bam Ware? I’m not trying to be the Orlando Magic here that sounds like prison ball to me what kind of spacing is that I know Bam got handed the franchise reins after Jimmy left but if you go for Giannis you trade Bam imo
I just threw it out there for discussion purposes. They would probably want Herro, Ware plus 1-2 more young players and 2-3 picks. FTS.
Gotcha
Yesss….because the Miami Heat has one if not the best development program in the league. I bet they could’ve develop some of us here haha!
even in his prime he would run out of gas in the end never forgive him for last game vs lakers in bubble.waiting waiting for him to do something never happened.he does not have good dunc endurance
Trading Jimmy was 100% the right decision, it just needed to happen much earlier than it did. It should have happened in the off season, when it was quickly becoming clear, that Butler, who has a history of making waves, wasn’t going to be happy.
Then you get to the actual trade and the front office compounded the mistake, by taking players with multiple years left on their deals and getting only a single draft pick.
The front office made one right decision, but two wrong decisions. Moving on from Jimmy was right, but in the end, I think they would have been better just keeping him here disgruntled and hoping he’d opt out, or trading him in the off season, than taking the multi year contract of Dollar Store Butler and vet Kyle Anderson in return.
Riley was right to not overpay Butler. He was wrong on how he handled the marriage when he realized a divorce was inevitable. He allowed his b.s. macho ego to take priority over the welfare of the family and the children (the team and the players) and let the problem to fester and infect the team for far too long. As I have said previously, I sure hope Riley doesn’t make an impulsive trade that blows up in his face and sets the team back for years. If he doesn’t know the right way to turn the ship around now, at 80 years of age, he never will.
sports is cyclical by nature.unfort for us heaters future looks bleak when u see the teams currently playing.i see no path for success for the next 3 -5 years.nobodys coming here (no dwade) no assets to trade gotta hit on an antman type player in draft only savior.sun can u get me an ant.in next few years please take the job
How about an “Ant Light” named Kuminga?
“Why rely on undrafted talent as opposed to legitimate talent?”
Because the fo tried to lure talent without gutting the team but obviously was unsuccessful and still continued its development of players to give the team a fighting chance at least. The Rozier debacle was 50/50 blame game. Half blame to fo and half the player since he did not live up to expectations. Its easy to hunt for “witches” thinking (or hoping) you get it right specially us fans criticizing Pat and co. As Matt said here the godfather isn’t perfect. The problem: us fans wants our team to be perfect. Right away. We want a 2-way superstar and very reliable role players. We want a 60-win season. We want to get to the top of the basketball world right away. That’s our measure of success. Well, for most of us. As if Pat doesn’t want that, of course he does. He’s a power hungry wants-to-win-now champion player, coach, executive. But winning as we all know is easier said than done. Go to OKC, Den, Bos, Cleve, even Indy and NY since they are at least winners in the regular season or the playoffs since we want to follow winners lol
Great comment, Manila.
Ei thanks. Sorry if I sound like a Pat apologist lol
“As Matt said here the godfather isn’t perfect.”
I think folks being negative (or myself being negative) aren’t expecting perfection. I can see Pat’s hits – he’s done a great job in general with the middle round picks.
The problem is, his hits are few and far between. You can give the front office all the credit you want for this long term run as a middling franchise (save for a couple of the “playoff Jimmy” years). But lets be real about Pat’s contracts and trades post LeBron, they haven’t been good. It’s a laundry list of mistakes.
James Johnson
Dion Waiters
Hassan Whiteside
Duncan Robinson
Tyler Johnson
Victor Oladipo
Terry Rozier
Kyle Lowry (this probably isn’t fully fair since in 2 of his 3 years they were good, even if in one of those years they were the 8 seed), but that money
Wiggins/Anderson/Pick trade
Precious Achiuwa (over Tyrese)
Jaime over Whitmore and Pods (this might be too early, but I still think Cam was the right call there)
Dragic Trade (again probably half right, but the multiple picks, under the impression that they were close to a title, feels not great. But probably gets a pass because of the Chris Bosh situation, being unpredictable).
Giving him credit for finding a gem in Bam, Tyler and Ware is fine. For crafting some cast offs and undrafted guys like Duncan (prior to the over pay), Strus, Vincent, Martin – sure. But overall, they’ve struck out on trades, over paid on re-signing guys, and struck out at attracting stars. The god father isn’t perfect….but he’s also not good.
James Johnson – fair
Dion Waiters – fair
Hassan Whiteside – fair
Duncan Robinson – fair
Tyler Johnson – fair
Victor Oladipo – Dipo got shafted man so
unlucky
Terry Rozier – yeah I get it but also I mean also wtf how the hell was anybody supposed to know he would do whatever that was. Fall off doesn’t even come close to describing it. This guy was a freaking baller for years and years the scale of this is of almost unprecedented proportion
Kyle Lowry – fair
Wiggins/Anderson/Pick trade – I think you’re referring to Butler not being traded earlier and thus getting a better haul, fair. Otherwise I don’t realistically think it was gonna get better than Wiggs/Kyle/Pick
Precious Achiuwa (over Tyrese) – that one still sucks but other teams made the same mistake and they otherwise haven’t missed. Fair but I give them a little slack
Jaime over Whitmore and Pods – let’s pump the brakes here I mean this fanbase has completely forgotten how head over heels in love it was with Jaime last year. Jacquez would be the talk of the season if Rozier wasn’t so unbelievably bad. I would hold off
Overall pretty evenhanded analysis I would say but honestly I would have included them dashing our second round pick stash that was a butcher job
IM, you just saved me a lot of time writing my response because you said exactly what I was going to say! You can also add Winslow over Booker to the list. It turned out badly, but he was highly regarded at the time, so much so that the Celtics offered multiple first round picks for him. Stuff happens. Teams passed on Jokic 40 times (!!!!) before he was chosen with the 41st pick. 14 passed on Giannis.
Right you are RC, Dbook was a wildcat too!
Excellent points IM. Drafting is a crap shoot and trades based on past performances don’t always ensure future successes.
Case in point…
“Hits are few and far between…”
The parity in the league right now is greater than ever. Not one franchise will have a dynasty like the 80s 90s even 2000s. So even if you have a Jokic, Giannis, Ant…a championship in not guaranteed. If you ask around the league what franchise has the best development program what team comes up at least in the top 3? The Miami Heat makes the most out of its players and always has a plan to get top tier talent. And getting the right “hits” and wanting it to be frequent is what this organization is aiming at. For arguments sake can anyone here name a franchise in the last 10 years who have winning “hits” (top tier players) that translated to multiple championships? Take note plural. For the “hits” to be many and not few, and frequent and not far in between. Since our measure of success is the Larry O’Brien trophy. I understand our sentiments and frustrations. It just sounds sometimes that we appear like a Port, Wash, Suns, Atl, Chi…orgs. Let me just borrow RC’s line – Let’s Go Heat!
It can be argued that Miami didn’t have the money to bring in more talent because it wasted money by overpaying players such as Rozier, Lowry, Robinson, etc. However, Riley did make the right decisions by letting so many other players walk, (e.g., Crowder, Nunn, Tucker, Martin, Strus, Vincent, etc.).
Another good point
It’s a crap shoot. Some GMs are really good. Some really suck. Some are great at making trades. Some make terrible trades. Some are good judges of talent. Some aren’t.
On a more positive note, please watch this video on Davion Mitchell. I’m more and more impressed by him the more I learn. Down to earth, hard working, unselfish, team player, clean cut, outstanding defender, likeable, a winner. He still has untapped potential. Worth a few minutes of your time.
If Riley let’s this guy slide through his fingers after some of the terrible contracts he has approved, he should be fired.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PxPtpNLFHEg
I guess its safe to say everyone likes DMitch. I think Heat will keep the guy.
Not if Riley pinches pennies. Nobody likes to be disrespected. Get the negotiation process over with quickly Pat. Four year deal hopefully. Pay the man!
Watched it as soon as it came out I freaking love this guy
I think we have all finally found something/someone we can agree on. If this guy doesn’t have “Heat Culture” written all over him, I don’t know who does?
The more playing time he gets, the more confident he will become. With increased confidence will come better performance. I think he’s a late bloomer. I don’t know what his ceiling is but if he stays in Miami we’ll find out. He came to Miami at the perfect time for himself and the Heat.
Davion restored order where there was chaos, energy and excitement where there was apathy and lethargy, optimism where there was pessimism and smiles where there were frowns. That O.T. play-in game against Atlanta was one of the most exciting and enjoyable games of the year. For a moment, we got a brief glimpse of a team that was better than the one we had seen all season. Davion leads by example and a he’s winner!
You’re damn right I like him! Sign him up asap Riley.
July 6
Teams can begin officially signing players, extending players, and completing trades (11:01 am CT).
Riley was absolutely right in not paying Butler. He was dogging it last season and started doing it again this season even after he said he was going to opt out this summer and Riley said he had no intention of trading him before then.
We fans hadn’t seen “Playoff Jimmy” caliber play from Butler or anything close to that since the 2023 playoffs. Based on the caliber of his play and apparent physical limitations, most of us thought he was further along in his decline than he evidently was. Most of us felt Riley should not agree to an extension until/unless Butler demonstrated that he could be available and could perform at a level commensurate with his requested two year extension ($110M).
In a game of “Testosterone Chicken” Butler decided rather than playing out the season to earn a max contract from Miami or another team this summer, he would to go to his “ace in the hole” to force Riley’s hand to trade him to a team of his choosing. He became disruptive and began “quiet quitting” to the detriment of the team and his teammates. He was subsequently suspended 3 times, the last time it was indefinitely. The rest is history.
Well, Jimmy is out a series later then Heat. Having him in Miami wouldn’t change anything.
There are another team fans who will suffer to watch him play for the next two years in regular season as shit, when not injured or too lazy to play.
Once again, Jimmy Butler shows he’s not good enough to get out of the second round without the help of Pat Riley
Amen! The last Miami will remember about Jimmy Butler is that he was a quitter.
Hey, I’ll remember the good times. The Miami Heat gave Jimmy Butler more success in his 3rd best season with the Heat then any other season of his career.
Sure, Pat Riley and The Heat have experienced way more success than they had with Jimmy Butler. But for Jimmy, it was – by far – the most success he’s ever had in his career.
Hope he enjoys his giant paycheck as the 3rd best player on a team that used to be good.
2nd
Draymond 8 time all defensive team, former DPOY, four time NBA Champion. Kuminga in upward trajectory, if GSW can afford to keep him. Butler is an aging overpaid former all-star on a downward trend who hasn’t won jack s***. Jus sayin.
dra jim 2 very diff players overall id rther have jim.dra had steph klay and others he did his job very well for a guy that couldnt score a lick.hes the most talented untalented player ever
Tbh he hasn’t been since the 2nd round vs the Knicks some could argue vs the bucks. But bam/turtle (Knicks) and Caleb (Celtics) were the reason Mia got to the finals
In 2023, the Heat beat the Celtics in 7 games to go to NBA finals. In the ECF close-out game, Butler had 28 points and was named ECF MVP. Martin had 26 points, Bam had 12 and Lowry had 7.
In the close-out game in the NBA finals against Denver, Miami lost 94-89. Butler led the team with 21 points, Bam had 20, Lowry had 12 and Martin had 10.
Playoff Jimmy
Last seen June 12, 2023 Game 5 of NBA Finals
https://imgflip.com/memegenerator/79023506/Milk-carton