Jimmy Butler on whether he can find joy again while playing for Heat: ‘Probably not’

If the speculation and rumors from the last few weeks weren’t enough, Jimmy Butler made it clear: He is no longer happy with being a member of the Miami Heat.

“I want to see me get my joy back from playing basketball,” Butler said following the Heat’s 128-115 home loss to the Indiana Pacers on Thursday night. “And wherever that may be, we’ll find out here pretty soon, I want to get my joy back. I’m happy here — off the court. But I want to be back to someone dominant. I want to hoop and I want to help this team win. Right now, I’m not doing that.”

Does Butler believe he can get his joy back while remaining on the Heat’s roster?

“Probably not,” said Butler, who is on a $48.8 million salary for this season.

Butler has informed the Heat that he’ll accept whatever the team decides to do next, according to league sources, whether it’s a trade to any of the other 29 NBA teams or play out the rest of the season in Miami.

Butler’s comments late Thursday came after back-to-back nine-point performances in his first two games back from a five-game absence stemming from an illness. Heat coach Erik Spoelstra did not play Butler in the fourth quarter of either of those two contests.

Butler totaled just nine points on 3-of-6 shooting from the field, 1-of-2 shooting on threes and 2-of-2 shooting from the foul line, two rebounds, four assists and two steals in 27 minutes during Thursday’s loss to the Pacers. That came 24 hours after Butler recorded nine points on 3-of-5 shooting from the field, four rebounds and two assists in Wednesday’s home win over the New Orleans Pelicans.

“It felt great,” Butler said when asked about his second straight nine-point performance Thursday. “I felt like I was focused. I felt like I did my job, or at least what my job is now.”

Butler, who has spent much of the last two games standing in the corner on the offensive end, made clear he’s not comfortable in his role within the Heat’s offense this season. Butler’s usage rate of 20.3 percent this season is his lowest usage rate since his third NBA season in 2013-14.

Butler is averaging 17.6 points on 10.5 field-goal attempts, 5.5 rebounds, 4.7 assists and 1.2 steals per game while shooting 55.2 percent from the field this season. That’s also the fewest points and field-goal attempts he has averaged since the 2013-14 season.

“That’s not what I’m used to being,” Butler said. “I haven’t been that since my first, second, third year in the league, where I just went out there and played defense. I competed, I guarded, I tried not to let my man score. But that’s what I’m doing now.”

When asked how the Heat can get Butler more involved on offense, Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said he played Butler in more of a point guard role during the second half of Thursday’s defeat to get the ball in his hands.

“Whatever we got to do,” Spoelstra said. “If we got to get him activated, put the ball in his hands and play point. He’s done it before. We know how to get him going, he knows how to get going. These are not two strangers. Aberrational, activate on Saturday.”

Does Butler believe playing more minutes as the Heat’s point guard will help fix the issue?

“That ain’t gonna fix it,” Butler said.

Whether Butler is a big part of the Heat’s offense or not, he made clear “I will compete.”

“I’m going out there to compete to win, either way – whether I score or not,” Butler said. “I will compete. That’s one thing that I will say. So you won’t say that I’m out there not playing hard. It may look like that, because my usage is down and I don’t shoot the ball a lot.”

In the wake of Butler’s explosive postgame comments, his Heat teammates were left answering questions about the situation.

“I have no clue,” Heat guard Tyler Herro said when asked how the team can get Butler more involved in the offense. “I’m not the coach. We tried to get him involved, I thought.”

Heat center Bam Adebayo added: “We still got to go out and play basketball, and try to win games. For us, we let Jimmy, Pat [Riley], Spo, we let them handle that situation. For the rest of us, we still got to go out there and try to compete and win games.”

Butler’s comments Thursday suggesting he would like to play elsewhere were even stronger than his comments Tuesday.

Asked Tuesday if he would indeed prefer to be traded, Butler said: “Does it matter? Does it matter?... I honestly do not care about getting traded, where I’m supposed to go, who’s saying what. ... All of that is out of my control anyway.”

Butler was then asked on Tuesday if it’s in the best interests of both parties to stay together this season or have an amicable divorce before the NBA’s Feb. 6 trade deadline.

“I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t know. That’s up to Pat. He will do what’s best for the organization as they should.”

Butler left the Heat’s loss to the Oklahoma City Thunder on Dec. 20 with what appeared to be a sprained ankle, but was later identified by the Heat as a stomach illness. He missed the subsequent two games with that illness, and then missed three more games with what the team listed as “return to competition reconditioning” before returning to game action this week.

Butler has missed 10 of the Heat’s first 32 games this season, months after Riley implored him to be available for more games. The Heat is 5-5 in his absence this season.

According to multiple sources, the 35-year-old Butler has been disappointed with the Heat primarily because Miami declined to give him a two-year, $113 million contract extension this past summer, a deal that would have run through the 2026-27 season. Butler was open to signing such a deal early in the negotiating window, but his mindset changed when the extension wasn’t immediately offered by the Heat.

After the Heat did not quickly agree to an extension this past offseason, Butler decided to play out this season and exercise his option to become a free agent this upcoming summer. That remains his intention, sources said.

Riley issued a strong statement last week to push back against all the trade noise. “We usually don’t comment on rumors, but all this speculation has become a distraction to the team and is not fair to the players and coaches,” Riley said in the statement. “Therefore, we will make it clear — we are not trading Jimmy Butler.”

The Heat (17-15) next plays Saturday against the Utah Jazz at Kaseya Center prior to embarking on a six-game West Coast trip.

This story was originally published January 2, 2025 at 11:00 PM.