Miami Heat star Jimmy Butler’s response to a recent Instagram post from big man Kevin Love has potentially poured cold water on the notion that the end is near for the 35-year-old’s time in Miami.
Heat owner Micky Arison is set to meet with Butler before he returns to the team from his seven-game suspension, and Love’s Instagram post hinted that Butler will want to stick around in Miami once he hears out Arison.
View this post on Instagram
However, what might be the most interesting aspect of Love’s post is that it received a like from none other than Butler himself.
“I’M NOT F****** LEAVING” scene from Wolf of Wall Street
On Kevin Love’s IG
with the caption “LIVE LOOK – Jimmy after his meeting with Micky #getmyjoyback”
…liked by Jimmy Butler pic.twitter.com/BwgcxnnWe3
— jeremy chandler taché (@jeremytache) January 16, 2025
Love and Butler have been teammates on the Heat for a while now, as the former joined Miami partway through the 2022-23 campaign. They were both members of the Heat squad that shocked the world and reached the NBA Finals as the No. 8 seed in the East in 2023.
However, Love has seemingly fallen out of Erik Spoelstra’s rotation, as before he saw the court against the Los Angeles Clippers on Jan. 13, he hadn’t played since Miami beat the Houston Rockets on Dec. 29.
Butler can take the floor for the Heat for the first time in more than a fortnight when Miami takes on the Denver Nuggets on Friday. He last played against the Indiana Pacers on Jan. 2 and had a very quiet game, as he finished with only nine points on 3-of-6 shooting from the field to go along with two rebounds, four assists and two steals.
Despite all of the drama that has occurred between the Heat and Butler of late, Miami seems like it could benefit greatly from his return. After all, Miami has lost more games than it has won since Butler’s been sidelined and is one loss away from falling back to the .500 mark on the season at 20-20.
Assuming Butler will indeed play against the Nuggets, it should be interesting to find out how he’ll fare in his first game back and if he’ll have any extra motivation to beat Denver, considering the team eliminated his Heat in the 2023 championship series.
