Livescore
Jimmy Butler wants to be traded and will use his $52.4 million player option next season to leave Miami, he will not re-sign with the Heat.
None of that is new, but Butler reiterated it face-to-face with Miami Heat president Pat Riley, Shams Charania of ESPN reports.
Butler told Riley that he will not sign a new deal in Miami and intends to only use his $52 million player option in the offseason for 2025-26 as a trade maneuver, sources said.
Butler is currently suspended from the Heat as they are on a six-game road trip (having gone 3-2 with a game against the Lakers remaining). On Thursday, he will be back with the team. At that point, a decision needs to be made about moving forward, but none of the options are great:
• Butler returns to the roster and plays (with a question of what kind of effort level the Heat would get, he pretty much tried to quiet quit for a couple of games before the suspension).
• Butler is traded (more on that below).
• The Heat pay Butler to stay away from the team and run his new coffee shop.
This latest ESPN report added this update on trade talks:
The Heat have engaged with multiple teams on Butler trade scenarios and have received offers but have been hesitant to negotiate further, sources said. Riley has not shown an urgency in these talks, as the trade deadline looms on Feb. 6, sources added.
While I don’t pretend to know Charania’s sources, that is clearly spin from Butler’s camp or a team looking to get lucky with a lowball offer.
What league sources have told NBC Sports — and has been reported by others as well — is that there is no Butler trade close because nobody has stepped up with a reasonable offer to this point. Miami wants players who can help them win now and doesn’t want to take on bad contracts in any trade, which becomes difficult with Butler making $48.7 million this season (as does constructing a trade under the tax apron restrictions). The bottom line is that a lot of teams look at Butler being 35, look at how his game is aging, think about him potentially being a free agent next summer, and don’t want to get into the Butler business unless they can get him in a steal of a trade. Miami, understandably, is not playing that game.
Butler’s ideal situation is to force his way to Phoenix, both because he wants to play with Kevin Durant and Devin Booker, and because their owner, Mat Ishbia, has said he is willing to pay up with Butler’s next contract. The problem is the only way to make that trade work is to send out Bradley Beal in the deal, but he has a no-trade clause, and even if he were to waive it teams — including the Heat — don’t want him for two more years and $110 million after this season (if he drops the no-trade clause all-together it helps his trade value, but why would he give that up?). Phoenix is scouring the league for 3- or 4-team trades that can make this all work, but those are incredibly complex to put together (and some team still has to take on Beal, which would require a lot of sweeteners going to said team, the kind of picks Phoenix does not have available to trade).
Most league sources expect this to play out until the summer when it will be easier to find a trade.
Until then, the Heat have some difficult decisions to make.
Read the full article here
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