With extension at center of Heat-Butler disagreement, role in offense has also become frustration
The Miami Heat’s decision not to offer a maximum contract extension to Jimmy Butler this past offseason is at the center of their seemingly fractured relationship, but both parties have also since developed an extensive list of grievances against each other.
Sources close to Butler insist that one of his biggest issues with the Heat has become his role in the offense this season. Butler vocalized that frustration after the last game he played before the Heat suspended him on Jan. 3 for seven games “for multiple instances of conduct detrimental to the team over the course of the season.”
“I felt like I did my job, or at least what my job is now,” Butler said after scoring just nine points for the second straight game in the Heat’s Jan. 2 home loss to the Indiana Pacers.
Butler spent most of that game standing in the corner on the offensive end, shooting just 3 of 6 from the field and taking only two free throws.
“It can be my role here,” Butler, 35. continued regarding his place in the Heat’s offense. “But I mean that’s not what I’m used to being. 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.”
Heat coach Erik Spoelstra spoke after that game about using Butler as a point guard to make sure he has the ball in his hands more often.
“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.”
But Butler made it sound like they were strangers, dismissing Spoelstra’s solution of playing him as a point guard.
“That ain’t gonna fix it,” Butler emphasized that night just before saying he lost his joy on the basketball court and doesn’t believe can rediscover that joy while playing for the Heat.
With Wednesday night’s matchup against the Los Angeles Lakers at Crypto.com Arena marking the end of the Heat’s six-game West Coast trip and Butler’s seven-game team-issued suspension, the Heat and Butler could be facing this issue again soon. Butler is eligible to come back when the Heat returns to Miami to host the Denver Nuggets on Friday.
While the Heat continues to listen to trade offers for Butler, there has been little progress in the Heat’s trade talks, and the expectation is Butler will be told to rejoin the Heat and be available to play in games if he’s still on the roster at the end of his suspension. As of now, the Heat is not interested in having Butler remain away from the team while paying him the remainder of his $48.8 million salary for this season after his suspension is over.
Butler is set to meet with Heat officials, including a potential meeting with team owner Micky Arison on Thursday, ahead of his potential return.
This all means that Butler could again find himself working in a Heat offense that he has grown frustrated with after the the system was tweaked for the team to take fewer long midrange shots and more three-pointers to produce a more efficient shot chart. That change is working, as the Heat has posted the NBA’s 21st-ranked location effective field-goal percentage (a predictor of what a team’s effective field-goal percentage would be if it shot the league average at each location based on their shot selection) this season after finishing last season with the league’s worst location effective field-goal percentage.
And on the surface, Butler appears to be having an ultra-efficient offensive season so far this season. He’s shooting a career-best 55.2 percent from the field and still leads the Heat in some advanced metrics this season like estimated plus/minus.
But Butler is averaging 17.6 points on 10.5 field-goal attempts, 5.5 rebounds, 4.7 assists and 1.2 steals per game this season. That’s the fewest points and field-goal attempts he has averaged since his third NBA season in 2013-14.
Also, Butler’s usage rate (an estimate of the percentage of team plays used by a player while on the court) of 20.3 percent this season is his lowest usage rate since 2013-14. Tyler Herro (26.1 percent), Kevin Love (24.7 percent) and Bam Adebayo (22.5 percent) are the three Heat players with a higher usage rate than Butler this season.
For perspective, Butler’s usage rate this season is similar to players such as Derrick White of the Boston Celtics, Klay Thompson of the Dallas Mavericks, Michael Porter Jr. of the Denver Nuggets, Buddy Hield of the Golden State Warriors and Myles Turner of the Indiana Pacers.
Butler’s usage rate in the first five regular seasons of his Heat career looked like this: 24.6 percent in 2019-20, 25.9 in 2020-21, 26 percent in 2021-22, 24.8 percent in 2022-23 and 23.5 percent in 2023-24.
In the playoffs, Butler usage rate shot up to 28.1 percent in 2022-23 and 28 percent in 2021-22.
After inquiring about Butler’s apparent diminished role in the Heat’s offense, Butler’s camp says it was told by the Heat that some changes were made because his inconsistent regular-season availability made it challenging to build the offense around him. Butler missed 22 regular-season games last season and 18 regular season-games in 2022-23.
Some with the Heat would say Butler has made his role in the offense look smaller than it actually is by making it a point in some games to run to the corner and play without the ball in his hands.
The fact is Butler turned in one of the best regular-season performances of his career just last month, when he totaled 35 points, 19 rebounds, 10 assists and four steals for a triple-double in the Heat’s Dec. 16 loss to the Detroit Pistons.
Whatever it is, Butler and the Heat may again need to figure out how to make it work if he indeed returns to the team in the coming days.
“It’s not a tough adjustment to me,” Butler said the day before he was suspended earlier this month when asked about his role in the Heat’s offense. “I’m going out there to compete to win, either way — whether I score or not. 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.”
