Sports
Jimmy Butler, Heat seem destined to part: Assessing the potential trade market
All of the people involved in this Jimmy Butler business are prideful, and justifiably so.
Pat Riley has been on — either as a player, assistant coach, head coach or top executive — nine NBA championship teams. And teams of which he has been a part have made 19 NBA finals. There have been only 78 finals in league history. That means Riles’ teams have been in a quarter of ’em. Almost three decades after he came to Miami, his Heat organization remains, as he is, relentless and obsessed with winning, led by a coach in Erik Spoelstra whose tough love brand earns nothing but respect and accolades from players around the league.
Butler has earned everything he’s gotten in the NBA, coming from Tomball, Texas, to become one of the game’s great clutch players, a postseason force unlike most who have ever laced ’em up. To mix sports metaphors, Jimmy Butler rakes in the playoffs. And if the Heat, who seem to have stabilized themselves after a rough start, make another postseason, a healthy Jimmy Butler would likely rake, again.
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But, the way things are headed, the player and the team seem destined to part ways. Maybe amicably, which is what mom and dad say when they go Splitsville, so as not to upset the kids. But divorced, nonetheless. Whether it comes during the season or next summer, with the 35-year-old Butler holding a player option at $52 million for the 2025-26 season, we seem to be moving toward that inevitability, with the backdrop of last season, when both sides seemed to be chafing one another, still fresh in the mind.
Unless … the Heat come to the table with the two-year, $113 million extension Butler has wanted for the last year. Which is not likely.
At the very least, the Heat are indeed seriously listening for the first time to trade offers for Butler, league sources said. Nothing has approached a serious offer yet, but even being willing to listen marks a change in where the team was when Butler almost willed them to a championship in 2023, before Miami was overwhelmed by Nikola Jokić and the Denver Nuggets in five games.
But Miami’s sober about its current state.
In 2023, Miami was a Play-In team that got hot at just the right time. Last season, it was … a Play-In team, that got smoked by Boston in the first round, with Butler sidelined by a sprained knee. This season, the Heat seems to have found something with Butler and Haywood Highsmith flanking Bam Adebayo in the back of Miami’s defense. But no one thinks Miami is on Boston’s level right now. And the whole point of Patrick James Riley’s professional life is to compete for championships, not the eight seed.
So if moving Butler brings back players that give Miami more of a shot, the Heat will engage. That likely means taking back players, rather than a deal featuring a bunch of future picks. Riles doesn’t do rebuilds. (Plus, he’s going to be 80 in March.)
They’re not there yet. But, they’re listening.
Butler is listening, too. He hasn’t asked to be traded from Miami, but if he stays, he wants the max.
He took to heart Riley’s admonitions after the Boston series, when he called Butler out for an appearance on a podcast in which he said if he’d been healthy, Miami would have beaten either the Celtics or New York in a first-round series.
“If you’re not on the court playing against Boston, or on the court playing against the New York Knicks, you should keep your mouth shut, in your criticism of those teams,” Riley fired back.
So, Butler came to camp in even better shape than usual, and is averaging nearly 32 minutes per game, though he missed four games early in the season with ankle issues. He’s shooting 55 percent from the floor in 18 games, which would be a career best if it held up all season. He’s still drawing fouls, taking more than seven free throws per game. He believes he’s proving his worth on the court, and is setting himself up to play next season for big dollars. Could be Miami; could be elsewhere. It’s not that he’s ambivalent; all things being equal, he’d prefer to stay.
But … see above. And he does get that Miami has to find out what it could get for him, and that it could go either way.
Along those lines, don’t discount the possibility that Miami is not just trying to gauge the trade market for Butler, but also what it would cost to bring him back if/when he opts out.
No one other than Brooklyn would have the cap space to take Butler in via that route next summer. That’s not a likely destination for Butler, who wants to play for rings. So Miami’s play, if it wants to make a deal, would be the sign-and-trade route. Finding out what Butler’s market is now will also help the Heat determine whether to offer him, say, a free agent deal more like what the LA Clippers gave James Harden (two years, $70 million), rather than what the Philadelphia 76ers wound up giving Paul George (four years, $212 million).
Just how deep is a potential trade market for Butler? One could certainly form by the trade deadline as teams get more desperate to add a difference-maker for the stretch run. This is especially true out West, where Denver and Minnesota are flailing to regain their old form, whether because of injuries to key players (the Nuggets) or just a kind of malaise that has settled over the team (the Timberwolves). New Orleans, flat on its back at 5-21, certainly has to reassess its roster, and exactly whom it can put around Zion Williamson and Dejounte Murray going forward.
But the realities of the second apron, and the massive penalties it triggers for teams that exceed it, make a blockbuster deal for someone of Butler’s talent, age and price tag incredibly difficult to pull off.
Minnesota’s already gone blockbuster this year with the Karl-Anthony Towns trade, and is still trying to figure out how Julius Randle and Donte DiVincenzo fit best in the Wolves’ rotation. As our Sam Amick detailed Friday, the surging Rockets, heading to the NBA Cup semifinals this weekend in Las Vegas on the strength of an already-formidable defense, are a long shot to get into the Butler Sweepstakes.
Golden State has been linked to Butler, but Miami would have to think an Andrew Wiggins-based package, which would also likely have to include the now-out-for-the-season De’Anthony Melton, gets them closer to games in June than standing pat (no pun intended) with Jimmy Buckets. That’s a doubtful premise.
Dallas is turning the ball over too much right now to be comfortable, but the Mavericks are still a top-four team in the West, and are top 10 in defensive rating. They also have multiple alphas capable of taking over games offensively — Luka Dončić and Kyrie Irving — with a third in Klay Thompson who’s no stranger to postseason heroics. So they don’t necessarily need another scorer, though they struggled mightily at times during the finals series with Boston last June to put the ball in the basket consistently. (And, as Spotrac’s Kevin Smith notes, acquiring Butler would require the Mavs to jump through considerable second-apron hoops to fill out their roster afterward, needing to send multiple players/contracts to the Heat just to make a Butler deal work.)
New Orleans wants to move Brandon Ingram, to be sure. But you wouldn’t trade for Butler if you weren’t going to keep him, which means the Pelicans would have to come correct with an extension. And that would make the Pels, whose four-year, $112 million extension for Trey Murphy III kicks in next year, really, really expensive. They aren’t interested in being really, really expensive.
Phoenix has been bandied as a potential destination, as well. And, sure, the Suns are in win-yesterday mode. Having Butler on the floor with Kevin Durant and Devin Booker would make Phoenix that much more formidable, and Mike Budenholzer certainly could figure out ways to employ Butler’s defensive chops to maximum impact at the other end.
But a trade between Miami and the Suns would have to involve Bradley Beal waiving his no-trade clause to facilitate a deal, allowing Phoenix to make a relatively clean swap with Miami for Butler. As Beal chose the Suns over the Heat in the first place in 2023, when the Wizards had the framework of a deal in place with Miami to send him there, it’s hard to see him now wanting to go the other way, even if the Eastern Conference is decidedly less treacherous to navigate than the Western Conference. Beal chose Phoenix over Miami, in part, because it was much closer to his wife’s extended family in California.
Sacramento is certainly underachieving, at .500 through 26 games and currently out of the Play-In round. But even if interested, the Kings would have to know that they could re-sign Butler next summer. With the Kings already at the first apron hard cap, going further to keep Butler, while De’Aaron Fox creeps ever closer to unrestricted free agency, would seem to be a non-starter.
Pride goeth before a fall, it says in Proverbs. The best solution for Jimmy Butler and Pat Riley and the Miami Heat might just be for everyone to swallow their collective pride, make a deal everyone can live with, and play it out on South Beach.
(Photo: Carmen Mandato / Getty Images)
Sports
It’s Game 7, and we have a bet locked in as the Cavaliers and legacies are on the line against the Pistons
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The NBA takes a lot of flak for having meaningless games, and I can definitely understand it, watching on a random Wednesday in January. However, the playoffs have delivered over and over to viewers and rewarded us for putting up with garbage regular-season games.
This will be the fourth Game 7 of the playoffs. Three series have been sweeps, and the other three have been six games. That shows competitive hoops. Now, how do we bet this Game 7 in the Eastern Conference?
The Cleveland Cavaliers blew it. After not winning a road game all postseason, they took Game 5 in surprising fashion. It looked like they were going to win in six games. After all, they hadn’t lost a game at home in the postseason.
Instead, Detroit came out and blitzed the Cavs, never giving them a chance to get their footing. They lost in an ugly fashion and now have to figure out a way to win a game on the road.
Cleveland Cavaliers guard James Harden drives to the basket against the Detroit Pistons during the second half of Game 5 in the second-round NBA playoffs in Detroit on May 13, 2026. (Duane Burleson/AP)
It isn’t just the Cavs’ fate that rests in this game. It is also the legacy of James Harden and, to a lesser extent, Donovan Mitchell.
We know that Mitchell is a very good player, but he isn’t regarded as one of the best players ever. Harden is. Unfortunately, Harden has struggled in Game 7s. He’s averaged 19.1 points, 7.3 assists and 5.8 rebounds. That’s not terrible, but looking at his shooting percentages, he is at 35.3% and 22.2% in those games. He actually is 4-4 overall in the games, but in his past three, he has scored a combined 34 points over 113 minutes.
The Detroit Pistons seem to like playing with their backs against the wall. They are a gritty team, so I suppose it makes sense.
Detroit Pistons’ Jalen Duren reacts after allowing a pass to go out of bounds in the second half of Game 4 of the second-round NBA playoff series against the Cleveland Cavaliers in Cleveland on May 11, 2026. (Sue Ogrocki/AP)
Cade Cunningham continues to deliver for the team, and he finally got some help in Game 6 from Jalen Duren. This was never going to be an easy series for Duren, but it feels like he is taking more time to mature than others. He definitely improved this year, but the consistency they need from him just isn’t there yet.
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Now as the team goes home they will need Duren to be a beast on the glass. If he can keep the Pistons in the rebounding battle, they should win this game with ease. They won Game 6 by just three rebounds, but that takes away a big dimension of what Jarrett Allen and Evan Mobley do for the Cavs. It isn’t everything, though, as the Pistons won the rebounding battle in both losses in Cleveland.
I don’t see this being a runaway game for the Pistons. Mitchell and Cunningham likely will cancel each other out with scoring. Harden needs to establish himself as the third-best player on the floor. I haven’t seen him do that in the postseason, yet.
Cleveland Cavaliers All-Stars Donovan Mitchell and James Harden talk during Game 2 in the first round of the 2026 NBA Playoffs vs. the Toronto Raptors at Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse in Ohio. (David Dermer/Imagn Images)
This is the second Game 7 of the playoffs for both of the clubs, so it isn’t like either will be caught off guard about what this entails.
If I look at it objectively, I think the Cavs have the better players. However, the Pistons have looked significantly better this season, and definitely in the playoffs overall. Both are prone to issues and slipping. The Cavs shouldn’t be as they are a veteran team.
This game has to be won by Cleveland, though. There is too much riding on the franchise and legacies of guys for them to not prepare properly for it. Maybe that’s weak analysis, but I’m taking the Cavs with the points and I do think they win outright. I expect a monster game from Mitchell, and Harden should get 10+ assists.
Either way, whoever wins will lose to the New York Knicks.
For more sports betting information and plays, follow David on X/Twitter: @futureprez2024
SOUTHERN SECTION SOFTBALL PLAYOFFS
FRIDAY’S RESULTS
FIRST ROUND
DIVISION 1
Murrieta Mesa 10, Valley View 0
Orange Lutheran 10, Millikan 0
Chino Hills 2, El Modena 1
Etiwanda 14, Agoura 13
Palos Verdes 3, Riverside King 2
Cypress 4, Fullerton 2
Ayala 11, Charter Oak 1
Riverside Poly 7, California 3
Norco 2, Marina 1
DIVISION 3
Rancho Cucamonga 9, Paloma Valley 1
Great Oak 5, West Torrance 2
Edison 8, El Segundo 5
El Toro 9, Colton 0
Murrieta Valley 9, Redondo Union 8
North Torrance 5, Beaumont 0
West Ranch 7, Trabuco Hills 6
San Juan Hills 8, Riverside North 7
Oak Park 10, Cerritos Valley Christian 4
Highland 7, Northview 2
La Serna 4, Carter 0
Dos Pueblos 5, Crescenta Valley 0
Liberty 10, Arcadia 3
DIVISION 5
Anaheim 11, Flintridge Sacred Heart 0
Patriot 11, Arrowhead Christian 9
Temple City 9, Rancho Christian 6
Grace 11, Buena Park 0
Crean Lutheran 3, Alemany 2
Shadow Hills 8, Cerritos 3
San Marcos 10, Leuzinger 0
South El Monte 7, Long Beach Wilson 5
Covina 11, Garden Grove Santiago 1
Muir 8, Rio Hondo Prep 7
Santa Monica 6, Katella 5
Ontario 6, Norwalk 2
Northwood 18, Duarte 11
DIVISION 7
Bloomington 9, Fillmore 8
Miller 11, Savanna 3
Santa Ana Calvary Chapel 11, Riverside Springs Magnolia 4
Faith Baptist 18, St. Pius X-St. Matthias Academy 4
Twentynine Palms 16, Rancho Alamitos 15
Riverside Notre Dame 12, Costa Mesa 2
Firebaugh 9, Pioneer 8
Chadwick 6, Desert Christian Academy 1
Cathedral City 2, Artesia 1
Orange 9, Bellflower 3
Santa Ana 10, Hawthorne 0
Culver City 9, Temecula Prep 8
DIVISION 8
Banning 20, Redlands Adventist 3
SATURDAY’S SCHEDULE
(Games at 3:15 p.m. unless noted)
SECOND ROUND
DIVISION 1
La Habra at Murrieta Mesa, noon
Chino Hills at Orange Lutheran
Etiwanda at Westlake
La Mirada at Palos Verdes, noon
Garden Grove Pacifica at Cypress, noon
Ayala at JSerra
Sherman Oaks Notre Dame at Oaks Christian, 1 p.m.
Norco at Riverside Poly
DIVISION 2
Bonita at Ganesha, 11 a.m.
Whittier Christian at Warren
Simi Valley at St. Paul
Moorpark at Lakewood St. Joseph, 11 a.m.
Temescal Canyon at San Clemente, 12:30 p.m.
Huntington Beach at Camarillo, Monday
Saugus at Vista Murrieta, 12:30 p.m.
Mater Dei at Gahr, noon
DIVISION 3
Great Oak at Rancho Cucamonga
Edison at El Toro, Monday
Murrieta Valley at North Torrance
West Ranch at San Juan Hills
Riverside Prep at Oak Park, 12:30 p.m.
La Serna at Highland
Dos Pueblos at La Salle, Monday
Villa Park at Liberty, 1 p.m.
DIVISION 4
St. Bonaventure at Harvard-Westlake, 11 a.m.
Apple Valley at Oxnard
Don Lugo at Monrovia, 1:30 p.m.
La Quinta at Mira Costa
Rio Mesa at Mission Viejo, 10 a.m.
Oak Hills at Sunny Hills
Ramona at Paramount
Burbank Burroughs at Rosary, Monday
DIVISION 5
Anaheim vs. Santa Clara at Beck Park
Temple City at Patriot
Crean Lutheran at Grace
Viewpoint at Shadow Hills
San Marcos at Irvine University, noon
South El Monte at Covina
Santa Monica at Muir, 10:30 a.m.
Northwood at Ontario, 1 p.m.
DIVISION 6
Irvine at Lakeside
Alhambra at Heritage
Eastside at Granite Hills, noon
El Monte at St. Genevieve
Sierra Vista vs. Southlands Christian at Brea Canyon Cutoff Rd
Hesperia Christian vs. St. Monica Prep at Memorial Park, 2 p.m.
Arroyo at Lancaster
San Jacinto at Jurupa Valley
DIVISION 7
Bloomington at Ramona Convent
Miller at Santa Ana Calvary Chapel
Faith Baptist at Twentynine Palms, Monday
Firebaugh vs. Riverside Notre Dame at Ramona
Chadwick at Cathedral City
Orange at Victor Valley, 11 a.m.
Santa Ana at Culver City, Monday
Windward at Edgewood, Monday at 3:30 p.m.
DIVISION 8
ACE at Avalon
Bolsa Grande vs. San Bernardino, Monday at San Bernardino College
Workman at Glendale
Cobalt at Santa Rosa Academy
Bell Gardens vs. Brentwood at John Anson Ford Park
Pomona Catholic vs. Capistrano Valley Christian at Laguna Hills, 2 p.m.
Fontana at Banning
Hawthorne MSA at Arroyo Valley, 1 p.m.
Note: Quarterfinals May 20; Semifinals May 23; Finals May 28-30 at Bill Barber Memorial Park, Irvine.
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After a slow first round at Aronimink Golf Club in Philadelphia on Thursday, pace of play was a point of emphasis at the PGA Championship on Friday.
However, when an official approached Justin Thomas and Keegan Bradley, they became animated.
Thomas, a longtime Team USA Ryder Cup member, and Bradley, last year’s United States captain, were on the fourth hole when they were approached by an official in a cart, and the conversation quickly turned into finger-pointing.
Justin Thomas and Keegan Bradley watch from the tenth green during the second round of the PGA Championship at Aronimink Golf Club in Newtown, Pennsylvania, on May 15, 2026. (Richard Heathcote/Getty Images)
Thomas said after the round that he, Bradley and fellow USA Ryder Cupper Cameron Young, who won the Cadillac Championship earlier this month, were put on the clock, with the official telling them to pick up the pace. However, both Bradley and Thomas appeared to point at the group in front of them.
“We just didn’t really agree with it,” Thomas said, citing course conditions, high winds and tough pins. “We were behind. That wasn’t our issue… It’s just the fact that we weren’t holding up the group behind us.”
Thomas said they were caught up with the pace on the very next hole.
Justin Thomas plays his shot on the 15th tee during the second round of the PGA Championship in Newtown Square, Pennsylvania, on May 15, 2026. (Bill Streicher/Imagn Images)
GARRICK HIGGO SHARES BAFFLING COMMENTS WHILE REACTING TO TWO-SHOT PENALTY AT PGA CHAMPIONSHIP
Thomas had a lengthy conversation with the official, while Bradley appeared to make his point short and sweet — though he was definitely not happy with the call.
It is a large PGA Championship field, with 156 golfers at the course and groups even starting their rounds on the back nine. The scores have also been rather high, with just 25 players below par at the time of publishing.
Aronimink also features a shared tee box on 1 and 10, holes 9 and 17 crossing paths, and a lengthy par-3 eighth hole that’s causing problems. Three par-3s are over 200 yards on the course, and there is also a 457-yard par 4 on the fourth.
Keegan Bradley prepares to putt on the 14th green during the first round of the PGA Championship at Aronimink Golf Club in Newtown Square, Pennsylvania, on May 14, 2026. (Bill Streicher/Imagn Images)
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As Chris Gotterup put it on Friday, “You’re not going to get any four-and-a-half hour rounds out here.”
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