The Miami Heat’s Jimmy Butler drama mercifully and finally ended Wednesday night, a day ahead of the NBA trade deadline, and allow me to offer this reaction in order of importance.:
1. Jimmy is gone. And the angels sang! I try to be careful with words. Won’t say he had become a “cancer,” in respect to people actually suffering that medical challenge, but will say he he had poisoned this Heat locker room and season with his childish, unprofessional antics resulting in three team suspensions. He quit on the team. Good riddance.
2. Oh, what might have been! Speculation swirled Wednesday that the Heat getting Kevin Durant in this complicated, multiteam exchange actually was a possibility, and that would have been sublime. Heat president Pat Riley has coveted Durant for years, and getting him would have been a career crescendo for the godfather. Durant is 36 but, not unlike LeBron James, remains time-defying elite.
3. The Heat’s not-Durant bounty was OK. Andrew Wiggins is a starter-caliber forward whose 17.6-point average mirrors Butler’s output. Kyle Anderson and the return of P.J. Tucker bring role players. The protected first-round draft pick to Miami could help.
Miami did the best it could. Failing to land Durant (yet again) hurts, but getting rid of Butler before the trade deadline was paramount, and should send a gust of fresh air through this franchise as the Heat sits at .500 and on the edge of playoff contention.
Getting Durant from Phoenix in this multiteam exchange to pair with Tyler Herro and Bam Adebayo would have alone made the Heat a championship contender, albeit a long shot this season. The trade as is does not. But it still is a net positive, because Miami rid itself of Butler and at least got something in return.
Butler preferred to go to Phoenix, making Durant-to-Miami a possibility, but Durant did not want to return to Golden State. It left Miami to scramble and strike the best deal it could.
Butler must have been OK with it. He quickly agreed to a two-year, $121 million extension beyond this season with the Warriors, even at age 35.
He flexed the power he had to get money he wanted. It hurts a bit to say Butler won in this., but he sort of did, in the latest chapter of athlete empowerment, contracts be damned. The Heat was just trying to cut its losses.
Circle March 25 on the calendar, by the way. That is when Golden State — and Butler — play next in Miami.
Butler was loved here, once.
Led the Heat to two NBA Finals and and an Eastern Conference final. He did not win a championship here, the standard, but he did not fail. He did not fail until the very end , when his selfishness shone.
Butler was loved here once, but that changed fast, by his own hand.
March 25 will be a very interesting night in Miami.
The reaction to this man’s return will be a referendum on whatever “Heat Culture” means, or once meant.
It will be a verdict on whether we think Jimmy Butler represented that — or ultimately betrayed it.
