With the trade rumors surrounding Miami Heat star Jimmy Butler still percolating, Butler seemed to take a shot at Heat team president Pat Riley recently.
An Instagram story of Butler depicted him complimenting one of the employees at what seemed to be a coffee shop. Following his praise for the worker, he said bosses are supposed to “build you up” as opposed to “break you down.”
Amid all of the drama brewing between the Heat and Butler, former New York Knicks superstar Carmelo Anthony cautioned Butler to be careful because Riley could take his revenge out on the 35-year-old by trading him to a team he would seemingly not have a great shot to win games with.
“Pat been doing this for 100 years,” Anthony said of the Heat’s longtime team president and minority owner. “Pat gon’ send him to somewhere that — ‘Yeah, okay, you wanna f— with me?’ Ok, I’ma send you to a place that they might think about waiving you, because you don’t fit what we’re trying to do over here. This is a younger team, we ain’t got time to deal with that. So, I’ma send you over here to one of these teams: the [Washington] Wizards, if you wanna play around. Pat gonna send him to somewhere like that, and that’s going to be a f— you to Jimmy. And then now you have to deal with that s— over there with that organization. So Jimmy, chill out, man.”
A few days back, a report came out that Butler is open to playing for any of the NBA’s other 29 teams and believes he can make any squad a contender. But it’s hard to imagine that Butler would help the Wizards become a contender right away when considering all of the team’s shortcomings so far this season.
Almost 50 percent of the 2024-25 regular season is in the books, yet the Wizards have won just six games to this point. Washington’s record of 6-29 is the worst in the Eastern Conference and the entire NBA.
Beyond merely Washington’s abysmal record, the Wizards don’t have many players who stand out as current or future stars in the league. Alex Sarr — the No. 2 overall pick in the 2024 NBA Draft – has shown some promise with his ability to score the ball and defend the rim, but Washington has whiffed on plenty of its draft picks in recent years.
It seems as if there has been acrimony between Butler and Riley dating back to May. Butler boldly claimed that the New York Knicks and Boston Celtics would have been bounced earlier on in the 2024 NBA Playoffs if he had been healthy enough to suit up for the Heat, and Riley took exception to those comments.
The Heat lost to the Celtics in the opening round of the playoffs that year, and the series wasn’t particularly close either. Miami lost the best-of-seven series 4-1 and got bounced in the first round for the first time since the 2021 NBA Playoffs.