(Photo via Getty Images)
When fans think back on Miami Heat Mount Rushmore, there’s no debate that Dwyane Wade leads that discussion. He is undoubtedly the greatest player in franchise history, and had a statue put up outside the arena this past season to justify that notion even more.
But who is behind him?
LeBron James helped lead the Heat to the mountain top twice as the best player on two of the franchise’s three championship teams. After him, though, it becomes more of a debate.
Of course there’s other accomplished champions and/or stars that came along the way— Alonzo Mourning, Shaquille O’Neal, Chris Bosh, Tim Hardaway, even Udonis Haslem’s loyalty— just to name a few. But one star made his mark in his own authentic way.
Despite Jimmy Butler’s messy trade departure out of South Beach, enough time has passed to move on from the in-the-moment type of feelings regarding his status amongst Heat legends. And there should be no question that Butler is a top-three player in franchise history.
No matter how ugly the ending was, Butler elevated Miami to heights that they haven’t seen since Wade and James shared the court together over a decade ago. His resume does the speaking for itself.
Jimmy Butler did the most, with the least, better than anybody in the entire league could have.
During the near six-year Butler era, he had support from the All-Star growth of Bam Adebayo. Goran Dragic played a key lead scorer role in that one 2020 run in the bubble. He also had a former Sixth Man of the Year in the talent of Tyler Herro, although he was sidelined with injuries in two of their other deeper playoff runs.
Other than that, the majority of the rest of the rosters were guys that played to a role. Their success of two Finals runs and an Eastern Conference finals run in a five-year span was mostly fueled by Butler’s confidence and playoff risings.
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In 2023 alone, Butler instilled that contagious confidence in a play-in eighth seed group all the way to an improbable NBA finals run.
The Heat took down juggernauts like the Boston Celtics, Milwaukee Bucks and New York Knicks during that year as a major underdog. They became just the second eight seed in NBA history to reach the Finals. And Miami accomplished all of that with multiple undrafted players alongside Butler in the rotation.
He was a ceiling raiser. He showed up when it mattered the most.
There will always be the fans that downplay Butler’s Heat run because he “quit” on the team on his way out amidst new contract drama. But don’t let his exit steer away from the incredible stretch of Heat basketball he brought to the organization as the lead superstar.
At his best, Butler represented “Heat Culture” as great as anybody. His heroics on the biggest stage unfortunately may not have resulted in a ring, but his tenure is assuredly good enough to go down as the third greatest Heat player in franchise history.
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Okay, first of all, The top-3 players in Heat history are D-Wade, Zo, and LeBron.
Alonzo Mourning came here when this was baically an expansion franchise, and (along with Pat Riley) turned them into a team that could beat anyone but Michael Jordan or a bullshit Allen Houston Shot. He made the Conference Finals as many times as Jimmy. He only made one finals but won it. He retired and came back. He got traded and came back. He’s still sitting in the stands with Pat Riley. If you don’t think Zo is at the top of the mountain, then you and I are watching two different things. I put LeBron James 3rd, and put Zo closer to 1st than 3rd.
That out of the way, Jimmy definitely belongs on the ‘second tier’ of all timers.
That includes a lot of the players listed in the article – Bosh, Shaq, Timmy, Udonis, maybe Bam one day. I don’t think enough time has passed to say for sure, but I would rank him closer to the bottom of that list than the top. He didn’t win as much as most of those guys. He wasn’t ever close to league MVP – he only made all-star twice! He had 2 good regular season and 3 good postseasons, with 2 bad seasons, 2 bad postseasons, and one of the worst individual performances in Heat history.
I’d call him a top-10 player but not a top-5 player.
Of course, if you want to go deep into the rabbit hole, we can go into the next “tier”, where you put superstar role players on title teams (Ray Allen, Shane Battier, Mario Chalmers) or best players on non-title teams (Goran Dragic, Eddie Jones, maybe Bam one day) or just weird personal favorites (Lamar Odom!) and that probably gives you a top-20. Maybe Jimmy Butler ends up down here one day, but I think he belongs top-10.
I’d rank him 7th, ahead of Tim Hardaway and behind Bosh. I suppose you could go higher.
But not 3rd. That’s just crazy talk
I don’t know about you guys but this is too soon for me.
Now, reading all the comments, I see many of us feel the same way. I am still a little, not mad, but maybe disillusioned, with Jimmy. I bought into him hook, line and sinker, ignoring the pattern he had already shown.
Yes, we are still disappointed with his character.
That’s like asking if Benedict Arnold was one of the top 3 generals during the Revolutionary War. He didn’t bring one single championship to Miami and quit on the city, the team and his teammates.
P.S. F*** him!!!
what made him quit.1)not enough help2)no chance for jewlry3)contract extension4)seeing dunc and ty play d 5)all the above. my answer is 5 anybody who thinks othererwise not being realistic.i know we all hate jimmy me 2 now but theres nuimerous factors which led to his disgaceful exit here
Wade was on a team that went 15-67 and he never quit or sulked. In fact, he went through a number of tough seasons and NEVER quit on his teammates. Trying to make excuses for quitter quitting is just that – excuses.
i believe w/o googling that was not prime wade.no excuse for his behavior totally sucked so why did gsw jump all over him
Actually, no. It was 2 seasons after the championship. He was injured in the latter part of that season. Also, the season after beating Dallas, they finished first in the division but were swept in the first round by Chicago. My point is that Wade didn’t bitch and moan, and never made excuses.
he bitched and moaned later on.sports is about winning.dont care if a player is likable or not most of them are likable just win baby(al davis)jimmy won wade won,jimmys a very good player wades a great player.bams a good player.tys above average.wiggins is average.give me the great players very good players i dont have to go out to dinner with them.or live with them.can give a rats ass if theyre likable.dan marino wasnt likablewho cares.duncan is very likable ok get him back on team
He quit all of the 2023-2024 season and went totally off the rails in the 2024-2025 season. It’s why I advocated trading him in February 2024.
so why did gsw jump all over him
Butler tends to be at his best in the honeymoon period of his contracts. He can still be a force in the playoffs. Remember that only GS and Suns expressed interest. If he was such a desired addition, why weren’t teams lining up? You keep confusing his ability with his actions and attitude.
news of the day beasley cleared terry still not.what is up with that taking tooo long/btw how do u know other teams were not interested in quitter.barry jackson ira winerman dont sit in pats office24/7.that stuff stays inhouse alot to.why would teams not be interested in an all star
Are you aware of any? If there were any other offers, obviously they were for less than the Warriors offer, right? Otherwise we would have taken it. You don’t need insider info to have common sense.
And past ability with current ability. Butler didn’t want to get paid for his projected future performance, although he was already being well paid and still had 1 1/2 seasons left on his existing contract. He wanted to get paid for his past performance, even though everyone knew his body was breaking down, his attitude sucked and the NBA would never see 2023 “Playoff Jimmy” again. Why would Miami possibly want to pay him $111M for two years? Riley did the right thing. Golden State was desperate.
He quit because he wanted to get paid max money immediately, although we hadn’t seen “playoff Jimmy” for a couple of years. All we saw was “slacking off & bitching” Jimmy. His agent said he would play out the season without complaining. He lied. As soon as Phoenix let him know they were interested in trading for him and would pay him max money, he started acting a fool, slacking off and going into “quiet quitter” mode in order to lower his value to make it easier for Phoenix, Golden State or some other team to trade for him without breaking the bank. He totally disrupted the team and sent it into a tailspin, but he could GAF! The decision to leave Miami was his his alone. Now he has to deal with the consequences and repercussions, both good and bad. He turned his back on Miami so Miami has turned it’s back on him.
Quitter is so yesterday. We should be focusing on the future and not the past. If you miss him that much, you can always tune into Golden State’s games.
Amen!!! We can say it 50 different ways and he still won’t accept it. That’s his prerogative, but it doesn’t change the facts that most people are aware of. You and I have never said Riley didn’t share some responsibility in this debacle. But you are 1000% right, it’s a dead issue, over and done, time to look forward, not back.
couldnt gaf btw.the only 48 minutes of bball i watch are the heat.ill watch bits and pieces of other games but not the whole game.nfl ill watch any game the whole game.my 1st sport football but first team now due to pats great run is the heat..pat took a laughting stock to a top tier team for about 3 decades.i dont like the direction team is headed though.mediocrity looks inevitable led by bam and tyler that neeeds to change.
Good example. Many don’t know that Arnold was, in fact, an excellent general for the Americans before he betrayed them.
.jimmy is the benedict arnold of sports.athletes have demanded trades but they still perform.for me just as bad as dogging it here was playing like playoff jimmy with bounce in his old legs.at gsw me and sun thought he was done cause of wear and tear on those 35 year old legs.but those legs looked good in gsw.after seeing that i was fuming mad.on another note last years team w/o jimmy for a full year is a 30 win team with or without distractions .powell is a great replacement btw hats off to pat.if the heat were in the west next year prob dont make playoffs.in the east could be top 4 team.the imbalance of the conferences next year has never been seen like this before.3 team race between atl orl and us will be fun to watch.hopefully pat can pull a nice trade or 2 like youve been clamoring for on your lebron posts.my #1 thing im looking for or curious for what do we have in ware.ty bam wig powell we know what we have.
Yes, true. I remember you went to their blog to tell them he would be a shell of his former self and would probably be injured sooner than later. Then, he miraculously must’ve met Ponce de Leon and his fountain of youth.
“Despite Jimmy Butler’s messy trade departure out of South Beach, enough time has passed to move on from the in-the-moment type of feelings regarding his status amongst Heat legends.”
What are you actually talking about? No it has not. He was literally trolling the team on Twitter like two days ago, via Draymond. We are still in the thick of his messy departure.
Why can nobody just wait for the next season to start? Why are we just making up things to be angry about? We need to see what this team looks like on the court without Jimmy and with a full training camp under their belts, before we can assess how important Jimmy really was.
List of players who are at least in the conversation with Jimmy, if not objectively more important to the franchise, in the order they joined the team:
-Rony
-Zo
-Hardaway
-Wade
-UD
-Shaq
-Bosh
-Lebron
-Bam
-Duncan
Until you can go down that list and tell me with a straight face that Jimmy’s contributions are *definitely* more important than all of them, like with a total 100% certainty, then Jimmy isn’t even a lock for top-10.
dunc r u a pistons fan now
sports talk no games now.r u a dolphins fan.whats your opinion of tua
AMEN!
2 friggin finals with bam 2nd option come on now
Top 5 in Heat history. Bottom 3 in professionalism.
last in prof yes.pats part to blame though.if im gm hes still here same with u rc ?
No way. Missed 1/4 of every season. Didn’t give full effort after he was told to ‘prove it’ to get the extension (he would’ve gotten it if he had balled out in 2024. He didn’t). Came back for 2024-2025 season pouting and giving no effort and disrupted the entire team and season, which severely impacted his trade value. Nope.
keep ss happy
Regardless of what they do? When they don’t play hard? When they quit on teammates, franchise, and fans? No way!
milesor myers leonard #2
Can’t put Jimmy above Timmy and Zo in my opinion. Yes, Jimmy had more playoff success than the Zo and Timmy 90s Heat teams, but he also didn’t have to deal with the Jordan Bulls and Ewing Knicks on a yearly basis. As far as individual and team success overall, including the regular season, Jimmy has to be behind Zo and Timmy.
Zo was a two-time Defensive Player of the Year, 1st and 2nd team All-NBA, and MVP runner-up and third place with the Heat. Timmy was 1st and 2nd team All-NBA and 4th in MVP in 97 (behind Malone and Jordan). Jimmy has never made 1st team All-NBA (one 2nd team and two 3rd team) and has never even been Top 5 in MVP voting. 3 good playoff runs doesn’t make Jimmy a better player. Zo and Timmy should be clearly ahead of him in Heat player rankings.
Nice objective take
playoff jimmy trumps zo and timmy.jimmy almost got me to meet rc in july.zo and timmy not quite.i dont give a crape about all star teams.i want rings
He was mostly great in the playoffs and, sure, he got you closer to a ring than the others, but, bottom line, he got you the same number of rings as they did – zero. Wait, actually that’s not correct. Zo did get a ring as a solid complimentary player. I still remember him laying on the floor pumping his fist.
dwade one man wrecking crew.jimmy one man wrecking crew wade was better but had alot more help than quitter.u can never take away how good playoff jimmy was pat failed him didnt fail wade
I’m not taking away from his accomplishments as you can plainly read. Wade was on some bad Heat teams and never quit! Excuses.
It would be disingenuous of me, in the interest of honesty, to not express my true agreement with the Pat let Jimmy down part, and only that part, of the comment by hfl. Pat had two years to get the player to put us over the top. I stated back then that when a teams leading player carries a team, his % load is maybe 20% When Jimmy carried us he was carrying 25%. We wouldn’t have gotten past the first round without Jimmy. I still dislike Jimmy now and agree with everyone calling him a quitter, believe me I can’t justify his actions and won’t make excuses for him. But, he was incredible for us, both times we made the finals. In fact, I think he carried us more to the finals with Denver than LA. Pat should have gotten him a better supporting cast and he had time to do so.
put yourself in jimmys position.u bust your ass in the finals and for that sake the playoffs u see the other teams second best player and then u see bam.a good player but not a #2 type player to get a ring.pat had numerous years to pull a trade and failed to get a legit 2 type player.id be pissed to but the way quitter handled it sucked.lebron needed wade.michael needed scotty.kobe shaq.jimmy needed ____not bam
Pat should have gotten him a better supporting cast and he had time to do so.
It’s easy to make vague statements like this without anything to back it up. What exactly could he have done in that period? Who could he have gotten? Would he be able to add a player you think he should have and still work within the parameters of the CBA? There’s a lot more to this issue than just believing something could have been done if we don’t know what latitude they had to do it. Maybe you’re right. I don’t know and am unwilling to see where we were relative to the cap, what tradable assets we had (if any), and what players we realistically had the chance to obtain. As stated above, I think I have addressed my stance on this issue more than enough, I will not continue to beat the poor dead horse. Time to move on.
It is a vague statement, that is true. But, I do believe it’s also a true one. There were some very poor pickups, some others of that had only limited value, and some failed whale watching over that period. There was one very good player brought in who unfortunately got hurt, VO. We have gone over the list of acquisitions several times over that three year period from after the LA finals. But, I agree it is a dead horse now, one that has been fairly debated. This is an emotional subject for us all. Time to lay it to rest. .
Yes, I was going to mention Dipo. At his best, he could’ve really helped.
Re-read the question heat.
“Is Jimmy Butler a top-three player in Miami Heat history?” It didn’t ask if he was a 3 top player in Miami playoff history. You know why? Besides not winning one single championship, quitter’s career Miami Heat numbers are as folows:
2 final appearances practically by himself herro prob has better #s.so hes a better player
You said, I didn’t.
he disgraced himself at the end but the answer to ? is prob yes.dwade bron butler zo timmy
I give you credit hfl. Your opinion ran against the grain and you stuck to your guns, didn’t lose poise or bark. I agree with just the part that Pat let him down, even though I am taking an unfavorable position there, because I believe that to be true. I don’t agree he had any right to quit, a great player toughs it out, with grace and a little appreciation for what the Heat did for him even though he did also do a lot for us.
But, I give you credit for fairly arguing your dissenting opinion.
Still to early for such article.
The mess he created is not cleaned yet.
So save such writing for years, or decades to come.
I agree. Should re-write the article after quitter stops being a money hungry @$$hole. Could take several years.
what athlete isnt
There are players all over the NBA who have signed team friendly contracts in order for their teams to remain competitive. Team-friendly deals allow teams greater flexibility to sign other players, manage the salary cap, and potentially avoid the luxury tax or navigate new rules like the second apron.
Here’s a few players who left money on the table in order to help their teams:
I agree. We can revisit this topic once he retires.