Miami Heat star Bam Adebayo spoke out about the trade rumors surrounding superstar Jimmy Butler in the 2024-25 season.
Butler is under contract with the Heat for the 2024-25 season and has a player option for the 2025-26 season that he is expected to decline, which would make him a free agent this upcoming offseason.
Adebayo shared how the Heat can limit distraction that could be caused by Butler’s name being in the news.
“You go out there and you win games,” Adebayo said. “That’s how you keep the distractions out. You go out there and win games, do it together. They’ll handle everything behind closed doors.”
The Heat are 14-13 so far in the 2024-25 season and hold the No. 6 seed in the Eastern Conference. Butler has missed seven games for Miami in the 2024-25 season, and he’s never played in more than 64 games in a single season with the franchise.
Despite the trade rumors, Butler has still played well for the Heat, averaging 18.5 points, 5.8 rebounds and 4.9 assists per game this season while shooting 55.2 percent from the field and 35.7 percent from beyond the arc.
“Obviously, you have the business side of it,” Adebayo said when asked if there is a sense that Butler wants to be traded. “So at the end of the day, we’re all a family, we’re all in a brotherhood. So we’ll worry about the basketball games that we have to play.”
The Heat star then shared how he believes the team will deal with the trade rumors surrounding Butler.
“How anybody else would deal with it,” Adebayo said. “It’s a holiday, we’re with our families, so we’re going to worry about our families and worry about everything else later.”
The Heat return to action on Thursday, Dec. 26 against the Orlando Magic. Orlando is currently ahead of the Heat in the standings, so a win would go a long way to help them narrow that gap in the Eastern Conference.
On Thursday, the Heat released a statement from Pat Riley stating that they do not intend to trade Butler.
The NBA’s trade deadline this season is on Feb. 6, so Miami will have until then to decide if it wants to pivot from Riley’s current stance and move on from the six-time All-Star.
Since joining the Heat ahead of the 2019-20 season, Butler has led Miami to the NBA Finals twice and the Eastern Conference Finals three times. The Heat last made the Finals in the 2022-23 season, losing to the Denver Nuggets in five games.
Last season, Butler did not play in Miami’s first-round playoff series against the Boston Celtics due to an injury. The Celtics ended up knocking Miami out of the playoffs and went on to win the Finals over the Dallas Mavericks later in the postseason.