bingewatches

A Jimmy Butler trade demand is unlike any other. When the star wing is done with a place, he makes that known emphatically, and is not afraid to make things as uncomfortable as possible. In Miami, he is going up against someone equally headstrong in Heat president Pat Riley, which is making for an even more fascinating standoff.

Butler missed time with an illness when trade rumors began swirling that he had a few preferred destinations, Pat Riley issued a public statement saying they wouldn’t trade him, and then Butler came back to play in two games where he was totally disinterested in trying to score and had the worst +/- on the team by a healthy margin. After those performances, Butler said he didn’t think he could find his joy playing basketball again in Miami and officially requested a trade, resulting in the Heat slapping him with a 7-game suspension for “conduct detrimental” to the team. In his official trade request, Butler reportedly did not furnish the Heat with a list of preferred teams, with ESPN’s Shams Charania and Brian Windhorst noting last week that he was “open to playing anywhere.”

That seemed to open the door for teams outside of Phoenix, Golden State, Houston, and Dallas to get involved, and the Memphis Grizzlies quickly became known as an interested suitor. Memphis is currently the 2-seed in the West and has plenty of incentive to try and add Butler for a championship chase this season, even with the understanding it might just be a one-year rental. It’s worth chasing a Toronto/Kawhi style title push, but there’s one hiccup. In a less than shocking turn of events, Butler didn’t really mean it when he said he’d take a trade anywhere, and according to Chris Haynes, the Grizzlies (and other teams) have been told not to trade for the star.

“The Memphis Grizzlies along with a few other teams have received word that Miami Heat star Jimmy Butler has no interest in being traded there,” Haynes said. “So the message is being delivered that a trade should not be attempted to acquire the All-Star forward.”

This is, honestly, eerily similar to the Kawhi Leonard trade situation, as he also made it clear he did not want to go to Toronto, but the Raptors traded for him anyways, convinced him to play out the season, won a championship, and then he left for his preferred destination of Los Angeles. As such, the Grizzlies certainly don’t have to heed Butler’s warning not to trade for him and might be perfectly alright making a move for him as a one-year rental, as they wouldn’t be giving up any of their core players to acquire him. The Grizzlies calling Butler’s bluff would be fascinating. Butler is a very different personality than Leonard so it’s not a lock they could get him to buy in for the rest of 2025, but tanking a season for a legit contender that traded for him when he proclaims himself to be one of the NBA’s elite competitors that cares most about winning would be much more detrimental to his image than what he’s doing in Miami.

This saga figures to drag on for the next month and impact numerous teams, particularly the Suns as they try to turn up the heat (no pun intended) on Bradley Beal to waive his no-trade clause by bumping him to the bench. The wild card in all of this is Pat Riley, who might hear these reports of Butler not wanting to go to certain teams and be even more determined to ship him to one of those places.