The Harsh Reality Jimmy Butler Faces with Career Hanging in the Balance

The Jimmy Butler trade saga is the NBA story that never ends.

By now, you know the details. Butler can become a free agent after the season. He has a $52.4 million player option for 2025-26, but what he really wants is a new, long-term deal. He made this clear to the Heat over the summer when he became eligible for a two-year, $113 million extension. However, team president Pat Riley was in no rush to hand one out.

"That's a big decision on our part to commit those kinds of resources unless you have somebody who's going to be there and available every single night," Riley told reporters in May. "That's the truth."

For the 35-year-old Butler, that was an unacceptable answer. He has no interest in playing for a team that doesn't want him long-term, so he's spent the first half of this season trying to force a trade. He's coasted on the court. He's missed team flights. On Monday, after being suspended for nine of the Heat's previous 12 games, he reportedly walked out of practice after learning Haywood Highsmith would be starting instead of him. The Heat responded by suspending him indefinitely.

"The suspension is due to a continued pattern of disregard of team rules, engaging in conduct detrimental to the team and intentionally withholding services," Miami said in a statement.

The question now is: How does this end?

Perhaps the strangest part of this whole ordeal is that Butler's antics appear to have caught the Heat off guard. That should not have been the case.

After all, Butler is the same person who pushed his way out of Chicago in 2017 when the Bulls wouldn't give him a max deal. He did the same in Minnesota two years later, only more aggressively. (Who can forget his torching and trash-talking his teammates during a practice and then bolting straight for a sit-down interview with ESPN's Rachel Nichols?)

"He's always been a pain off the court," a front-office member from one of Butler's former teams told B/R.

That doesn't mean the Heat are required to hand Butler the extension he wants. But they should have known this would be how he'd react, especially after Riley blasted him in public.

Butler missed the Heat's first-round series against the Boston Celtics, which they lost in five games, due to an MCL injury. Afterward, he said the Heat would have beaten both the Celtics and New York Knicks had he been playing. Riley seemingly took exception to that.

"If you're not on the court playing against Boston or on the court playing against the New York Knicks, you should keep your mouth shut," Riley said during his end-of-season press conference.

Riley had to know that no star player—especially not one like Butler, or one due for an extension—would accept such criticism. A protest was inevitable. Most executives outside of Miami are happy that Riley is taking a stand, but they believe the Heat made a mistake from a team-building standpoint by not getting in front of this problem.

"If it was us, we would have worked pretty hard to trade him in the summer," one Eastern Conference executive said. "We don't want a guy to be here who isn't all the way in."

Of course, there's a reason the Heat were wary of cutting the cord.

"Jimmy's quite good when engaged and playing," the Eastern Conference executive said.

Or, put a different way: We've seen over the past half-decade that he's one of the few players in the league who can transform a middle-of-the-pack playoff team into a legitimate championship contender. There aren't many players about whom that can be said.

The Heat know this. They've seen it. With Butler, they've made the NBA Finals twice. Without him, they're a .500 team that gets knocked out in the first round.

"By the numbers, he's still an All-Star," one Western Conference analytics staffer said.

That's been the case this year, even with Butler mailing it in. He's averaged 17.0 points, 5.2 rebounds and 4.8 assists per game while shooting an efficient 54.0 percent from the field. That might not be All-NBA level, but the Heat have still been 3.7 points per 100 possessions better with Butler on the court this season. According to Cleaning the Glass, they've played like a 50-win team with Butler and a 36-win one without him. And again, that's all without Butler putting forward his best effort.

Butler isn't a perfect player. He's still reluctant to launch from deep and is still streaky when he does. He's averaging only 1.4 three-point attempts per game this season, averaged 2.4 last season and is only a career 33.0 percent three-point shooter. He also hasn't played more than 64 games in a season since 2018-19. But unlike some of his fellow stars, he can be plugged into almost any ecosystem and thrive.

"He's not the player he once was, but he can still be a difference-maker for a playoff team," one Western Conference executive said.

One thing working against both Butler and the Heat is the NBA's new collective bargaining agreement, which was designed to curb spending.

"It's so difficult to operate within this landscape," a second Western Conference executive said.

"It really handcuffs teams," the front-office staffer said.

The new salary-matching requirements make it harder to execute trades. Also, the quasi-hard cap has left many teams scared of taking on risky big salaries.

Butler, with his $52.4 million player option, is exactly that. It gives him all the leverage. Any team trading for him has to be prepared to pay him that next season.

Because of the NBA's Over-38 rule, any team that acquires Butler could offer him no more than a two-year, $111 million extension. If he turns down his player option and becomes a free agent this offseason, he'd be eligible for a three-year deal worth more than $170 million. Given his age, injury history and the restrictive nature of the new CBA, most teams might balk at that price tag.

One player brought up by many league insiders as a good comparison for Butler was James Harden. Like Butler, Harden was an aging star who pushed for a trade after learning that his team—in his case, the Philadelphia 76ers—had no intention of giving him a mega-extension. Harden wound up forcing a trade to the Los Angeles Clippers, and he re-signed with them on a two-year, $70 million deal this past offseason.

That's almost $20 million less per season than Butler is asking for, which is contributing to this stalemate. In this new landscape, few teams are willing to pay Butler like a superstar.

With that said, all Butler needs is one partner.

"I don't think anyone thinks it's worth paying him what he wants, but some teams are desperate," a third Western Conference executive said.

Butler seems to have found a potential partner by locking in on the Phoenix Suns, the most desperate team in the NBA.

No team is more leveraged than the Suns. They've traded away control of all of their first-round picks through 2031. They're well above the second apron. And yet they're still in danger of missing the playoffs.

Giving up everything to put together a Big Three of Kevin Durant, Devin Booker and Bradley Beal has turned out to be a mistake. Most teams would react by punting on the season and tearing everything down. The Suns—specifically, owner Mat Ishbia—are taking a different approach: Keep doubling down. They've made clear they want Butler, and Butler, likely recognizing that Ishbia is perhaps the only owner willing to give him a big extension, has made Phoenix his primary target.

The problem is that, due to the league's salary-matching rules, the only way for the Suns to acquire Butler is by trading Bradley Beal and the $160 million he's owed through 2026-27. The Heat have no interest in taking back that contract. Beal also has a no-trade clause and does not seem interested in leaving Phoenix.

Perhaps there's a three-way deal that can be worked out with the Sacramento Kings, who are reportedly open to offers on star point guard De'Aaron Fox.

"Milwaukee is also desperate to add something and try to make one more run with Giannis Antetokounmpo," said the second Western Conference executive.

But to find a new home, Butler may have to lower his asking price on his next contract.

*Yaron Weitzman is an award-winning NBA writer and the author of Tanking to the Top: The Philadelphia 76ers and the Most Audacious Process in the History of Professional Sports. Follow him on Twitter @YaronWeitzman.