Two of the NBA’s longest-running plots were resolved Wednesday night.
The Warriors have found a second star to pair with Steph Curry. And Jimmy Butler has successfully forced his way out of Miami.
The Heat are trading Butler to Golden State for a package headlined by Andrew Wiggins and Dennis Schröder, according to multiple reports.
Butler had demanded the Heat trade him with free agency looming this summer; the Heat subsequently suspended him three separate times. The first suspension was for “multiple instances of conduct detrimental,” the second was for missing a team flight, and the third was for walking out of a team shootaround after he was benched.
The three suspensions cost him about $5 million in total, and the third suspension, where Miami cited “intentionally withholding services,” had potentially catastrophic consequences: It could have delayed his free agency.
That is no longer an issue. Butler quickly agreed to a two-year, $121 million extension with the Warriors, according to ESPN. As part of the new deal, Butler is reportedly declining his $52 million player option for next season.
The trade was growing to a complex five-team deal involving the Jazz, Raptors, and Pistons, but several parts of the deal remained unresolved as of Wednesday evening. A Warriors protected first-round pick is also headed to Miami, according to ESPN.
Though the $121 million deal is enormous, the swap solves long-standing problems for both sides. The Warriors had struggled to find a second star to pair with Curry after their surprising run to the NBA title in 2022, winning just a single playoff series since then. The franchise had been largely treading water since Draymond Green punched Jordan Poole in the face, and that trend continued this year despite Curry’s continued excellent production.
After a hot start, the Warriors have teetered within a single game of .500 since Christmas. Before Wednesday night’s game against the Jazz, they were 25–24, part of a four-way tie for the last three spots in the dreaded play-in tournament.
After their Western Conference rivals made a series of major deals this week, Golden State’s desperation ratcheted up ahead of Thursday afternoon’s trade deadline. The front office—led by former player Mike Dunleavy Jr.—was reportedly calling on every All-Star in the league, according to ESPN’s Shams Charania. Buzz built around the Warriors acquiring Kevin Durant, but that fizzled Wednesday with Durant reportedly having zero interest in returning to the Bay Area, where he won two NBA titles.
For Butler’s part, his situation had been simmering since the Heat decided to let the 35-year-old enter a lame-duck year rather than extending or trading him. Rumors of his discontent bubbled up in the first few months of the season before a Christmas Day report that he wanted to be traded. A week later, the Heat suspended him for seven games, saying in a statement, “Through his actions and statements, he has shown he no longer wants to be part of this team.”
Butler’s agent and the players’ union disputed the Heat’s version of events and the money he lost in his suspensions will likely be subject to a union grievance later this year. The union called the first suspension “excessive and inappropriate.”
Butler appeared in three more games after the first suspension and attempted just 31 field goals in the three games combined, well below his average since he became a regular NBA starter in 2014. His latest suspension was indefinite and Butler had not appeared in a game since Jan. 21.
Schröder, whom Golden State sent to Miami as part of the deal, knew he was on the trading block and expressed his discomfort with NBA trade culture in a widely circulated interview with NBC Sports Bay Area earlier this week.
In the interview, Schröder—who has now been traded six times—said the intense interest in player transactions was “terrible for the league” and compared teams’ ability to ship players out at a moment’s notice to “modern slavery.” Schröder has earned more than $100 million in his NBA career, according to Spotrac, and added the caveats that the complaint for wealthy NBA players was a “luxury problem” and that “everybody who’s in here is blessed.”
This is a developing story and will be updated.
