Jimmy Butler’s seven-game suspension ended Friday night when the star forward returned to action with the Miami Heat, who were quickly smoked by the visiting Denver Nuggets, 133-113.
There were two schools of thought on how Butler might approach the game amid his ongoing trade request, which he reportedly issued at the start of the new year: Either he would come away completely disengaged out of spite, as he was largely in the matches preceding his suspension. , or he would step on the pedal and go scorched earth in an effort to prove a different kind of point.
In the end, he didn’t really succeed either. If you were looking for drama, Butler’s ordinary performance — 18 points on 15 shots with three rebounds and two assists — didn’t oblige, either on the court or in his first postgame comments, that he preserved. simple when it comes to basketball itself.
“I guess it’s basketball at this point,” Butler said. “I know what I’m supposed to do while I’m here. I try to do it the best I can. We are where we are.”
However, later in his comments, Butler was a bit more detailed in his remarks regarding all the discussions that took place around him and the circumstances of his trade request.
“Everybody said a lot of things except me, to tell you the truth,” Butler said. “So we’ll let people keep talking like they know everything, like they have all the answers, and then sooner or later the whole truth will come out. But until then, we’ll keep letting people talk, and if I’m there, I’m going to go out and play.”
Butler went on to say that he didn’t even try to separate fact from fiction when it came to reporting on his situation.
“I expect people to talk,” Butler said. “Half the reason is that no one really knows what I do, so (they) just make stuff up. Which is good. And honestly, I really don’t pay attention to it, but I have people telling me say, “Oh, they said this, they said that,” and it’s like everything’s really fine, I don’t need to clarify anything so you know, more power to you. keep talking, and we will see where we end up.
As for Heat coach Erik Spoelstra, he simply refused to comment to reporters on Butler’s trade situation during his postgame press conference.
“I know what storylines you’re looking for,” Spoelstra said. “I’m not fueling any of that. Tonight, we got our ass kicked. I know what you’re talking about. I know what I saw out there from a defensive standpoint. That wasn’t good enough.”
In true form of Heat culture, Spoelstra won’t make a story about a single player, even if it’s the team’s best player trying to force his way off the team. The heat is on the verge the heat. This is likely a piece of Butler’s ego, as the franchise didn’t comply with him with the contract extension he wanted and thought he deserved this past offseason.
This past playoffs, Pat Riley chastised Butler for comments he made after Miami’s first-round loss to the Celtics — which Butler said the Heat would have won if he hadn’t been injured. At every turn, the Heat have made it clear that they don’t bow to players and that Riley’s ego, in particular, can outweigh even the best players in the game. Ask LeBron James about his exit from Miami. Ask Dwyane Wade, who felt forced to leave Miami when Riley wouldn’t even kowtow to him, a franchise icon, late in his career.
Butler is no different, which is problematic in that Butler – if you can read between the lines of his actions and comments throughout his career – believes himself to be absolutely different. He doesn’t think any player or team is bigger or better than him. That’s part of what makes it great. This may also be part of his reported annoyance about what he thinks an offensive transition is underway prioritizing Tyler Herro and Bam Adebayo as focal points.
So he wants to go out. He said there was no way to fix the situation in Miami. And until he gets what he wants, ESPN’s Ramona Shelburne reported that there is a “palpable dread at what (Butler) could do and the environment the current chaos could create” within the Miami locker room and the organization in general.
Well, for at least one night, the crisis was averted. The Heat lost the game, but Butler played with an acceptable level of effort and did not pull any headline-grabbing stunts during or after the game. It doesn’t show up on the scoreboard, but it’s a small victory for the Heat.
