Jimmy Butler is nothing if not dramatic. When he wanted to leave the Minnesota Timberwolves in 2018, he went out of his way to embarrass his teammates in a now infamous training camp practice and immediately followed that up with an interview. He arrived at training camps with intentionally unusual hairstyles solely for the purpose of creating funny promotional headshots. When he didn’t do that this season, the message was a desire to cut back on that drama. He’s playing for a contract. He has bigger things to worry about.
Well, 2024 isn’t even over yet, and Butler’s latest trade saga has already turned into a bit of a mess. Reports have indicated that he wants out of Miami. His agent has loudly refuted that reporting on Twitter. Heat president Pat Riley has openly said that they are not trading Butler. But Butler himself? Well, he’s not exactly quieting things down. No, on Tuesday, when asked if he still wants to play for the Heat, Butler stoked the rumors further.
“It’s a good question,” Butler responded to the Associated Press. “Who knows? I don’t. But right now, I’m here. So I’m going to make the most of it. I am going to compete and I am going to win. And that’s all that I’ve got. It’s a lot of talk. And it is a lot of noise, which I’m cool with. It doesn’t me at all. I love that. I thrive in that. But it keeps all y’all wondering. It does. It keeps the world wondering, to where you’ve got to keep coming back and asking me about something. I like it. It’s good to be talked about. Even better to be wanted, though. Remember that.”
Butler didn’t exactly dispute the idea that he wants a trade, though he didn’t confirm it either. Noting how it feels to be wanted, though, is significant here. Butler has a player option for next season and is reportedly seeking a long-term deal. The Heat have reportedly not been willing to give him one, so the thought behind a trade would be to get to a team with a better chance to win in the short term, and therefore to a team more likely to pay him to help with a short-term title push.
There is still more than a month left before the trade deadline, so plenty can change. Maybe the Heat go on a run and decide to come to some sort of compromise with Butler. Maybe they struggle and reconsider the idea of a trade. Either way, Butler is making it clear that he’s more than comfortable with all of these rumors. If anything, he’s helping to drive them.
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