Miami Heat star Jimmy Butler’s future in Miami has been called into question in recent days. ESPN’s Shams Charania reported earlier in the week that the Heat are open to listening to trade offers for the 35-year-old and that Butler’s camp has trade destinations in mind.
But some recent reporting from Five Reasons Sports offered a bit of a reality check regarding a possible Butler trade. The Heat allegedly have yet to receive a legitimate offer for Butler and won’t deal him unless an offer blows them out of the water.
Charania’s reporting sparked a bit of drama with Butler’s agent Bernie Lee this week, as the two of them went back and forth about the accuracy of Charania’s claims.
Butler is in his sixth season as a member of the Heat franchise and still one of the team’s top two-way players. He’s averaging 18.6 points, 5.3 rebounds, 4.7 assists and 1.2 steals per game so far in the 2024-25 regular season.
The former Marquette University standout has enjoyed a solid scoring stretch lately, as he’s averaging 20.5 points per game over his last 10 appearances on remarkable efficiency (60.9 percent shooting from the field and 58.3 percent shooting from beyond the arc).
The six-time All-Star’s contributions on the offensive end of the floor have helped the Heat stack up wins of late. Miami’s current winning streak of four games is the longest active streak of any team in the Eastern Conference, and the Heat are only one game back of the conference’s No. 4 seed with a record of 13-10.
Butler and the Heat will have a golden opportunity to pick up their fifth win in a row when they take on the Detroit Pistons on Dec. 16. Detroit owns a record of just 3-7 over its past 10 contests and lost its most recent game to the Boston Celtics by 24 points on Dec. 12 thanks partly to a 27-point performance from Celtics guard Payton Pritchard.
For now, Butler and the Heat remain together, and they’ll look to keep winning games as long as that’s the case.