Butler reportedly wants out of Miami, but has not formally requested a trade Getty Images
Heat president Pat Riley said Thursday that his team has no plans to trade Jimmy Butler, despite swirling rumors.
"We usually don't comment on rumors, but all this speculation has become a distraction to the team and is not fair to the players and coaches," Riley said in a statement posted on the team's official social media. "Therefore, we will make it clear - We are not trading Jimmy Butler."
The forceful statement comes a day after ESPN's Shams Charania reported that Butler, a six-time NBA All-Star and two-time Eastern Conference champion, would prefer to be traded by the Miami Heat ahead of the February trade deadline. Butler has reportedly not made a formal trade request to the Heat, but is ready to move on from Miami, and Charania reported earlier in December that the Heat are open to making a deal.
Butler has a player option for the 2025-26 season that he has informed teams he intends to decline, according to Charania, allowing him to become an unrestricted free agent after the season. He could have negotiated a long-term extension with the Heat before these rumors gained any steam, but Miami was hesitant, according to Pat Riley at his end-of-season press conference last spring, due to Butler's limited availability. Butler has never played more than 58 games in a regular season for the Heat.
The only team with significant cap space this offseason, as of this writing, is the Brooklyn Nets. The Nets are in the middle of a rebuild and are not expected to pursue an older, big-name free agent in the near future. That means for Butler to get the long-term contract he's seeking, he'd have to get traded now, so that a team that wants to keep him has his Bird Rights in the offseason. He reportedly prefers a win-now contender, with teams such as the Houston Rockets, Dallas Mavericks, Golden State Warriors and Phoenix Suns reportedly on his wishlist.
Both the Heat and Butler's camp have denied that a trade request has been made, according to Ira Winderman of the Sun-Sentinel. While this does not directly contradict Charania's reporting, which also states that a formal request has not been made, it should be noted that Butler's agent, Bernie Lee, has pushed back heavily on Charania's prior reporting on Butler trade rumors. In a series of tweets, he called Charania's reporting "complete and utter made up bulls---" and that "all this is fabricated."
The Miami Herald added that "according to a source, Butler was also disappointed that the Heat did not publicly deny a Dec. 10 ESPN report that Miami was open to trading him." The team has now done just that.
The Heat are 14-13 thus far this season. They have been a Play-In Tournament team in each of the past two seasons, including when they made their run to the 2023 NBA Finals. According to Charania, they are ready to lean into the rising, younger core of Tyler Herro and Bam Adebayo, and given their history of retooling quickly, they could potentially use the return on a Butler deal to kickstart whatever the next era of Heat basketball turns out to be.