On ESPN’s comments about Butler, the reaction and what Heat fans should know

No sooner than ESPN’s Kendrick Perkins implored the Heat to trade Jimmy Butler last week did the farcical nature of the fringe wing of modern sports journalism rear its head.

In the wake of Perkins’ comments, despite not a shred of evidence that Miami would consider dealing Butler, Bovada.com publicized odds of teams most likely to acquire Butler, with the Knicks designated as the favorite, as if Miami would send him to its most bitter longtime rival.

And that was followed by an inevitable ‘report’ from a fringe account purporting discussions of a Butler/Golden State trade that appears to be pure fiction.

An msn.com headline blared that the Heat and Warriors are “considering” a trade involving Butler and Klay Thompson.

If you clicked on the story, you saw that the author of the piece - an obscure X account named Hiptoro - tried to shield itself by saying the trade had ‘reportedly’ been discussed, even though there was no such trade apparently reported by anyone except the social media site that wrote the story.

Welcome to sports journalism in 2024, where simply giving an opinion elicits Las Vegas odds, which gives legs to a story without legs, which spawns ‘reports’ of trade rumors that read more like fiction, with the author of such reports believing he can escape any and all accountability by using the buzzword ‘reportedly.’

As for Perkins’ Butler rant, a few serious points are worth making on the issue:

▪ Because it came less than eight months after the Heat made the Finals, Perkins took his “NBA Today” colleagues aback with his public plea last week for the Heat to “do right by Jimmy and trade him to a team that actually could compete for a title this season. And Jimmy needs to accept that.”

It also elicited this response from Butler’s agent, Bernie Lee, on X (formerly Twitter):

“Put simply he’s never going anywhere.. EVER. He’s going to win a championship in Miami.”

▪ Even if the Heat surprisingly considered a Butler trade, two things to keep in mind:

1). Unless it has a roster largely bereft of talent, Miami has no interest philosophically in ‘rebuilding’ in a way that takes the team out of contention for a year or more. So trading Butler simply for draft picks and a ‘decent’ player wouldn’t be considered.

2). Trading Butler for a cheap young player, expiring contract and draft picks wouldn’t give the Heat anything close to max salary cap space to sign a star player - not as long as Bam Adebayo, Tyler Herro, Duncan Robinson and Terry Rozier are under contract.

So for the very small minority of Heat fans who advocate trading Butler this week and starting over, know this:

As one hypothetical: The 2024-25 contracts of Adebayo, Herro, Robinson, Rozier, Jaime Jaquez Jr., Nikola Jovic and Kevin Love (if he opts in for $4 million) would add up to $120 million. The 2024-25 cap is projected to be $141 million.

But cap holds for empty roster spots (about $2 million each), the cost for the Heat’s 2024 first-round draft pick, any cheap young player acquired for Butler and player options for Josh Richardson and Thomas Bryant (if they opt in) would eat up most of that space if Butler were dealt this week (in a highly unlikely hypothetical) for a package built around draft picks and an expiring contract.

There would be no cap space to offer a max deal - or anything remotely close - to LeBron James or Anthony Davis or anyone who can become a free agent this summer.

So a radical Butler trade scenario wouldn’t create the cap space to be a major player in free agency this year or next year. It would give the Heat more flexibility to make a sign-and-trade, but there’s no obvious, realistic target in this summer’s class to replace Butler, anyway.

Butler, 34, is due $48.8 million next season and has a $52.4 million player option in 2025-26. It’s unclear if he will seek another contract extension this offseason or whether Miami would be receptive.

ESPN analyst JJ Redick was on target late in Sunday night’s Heat loss to the Clippers when he said: “The Miami Heat are at their best when Jimmy Butler is in score mode.”

Here’s what I find interesting: Before he missed 11 games this season with a foot injury, Miami was 7-4 this season when Butler scored fewer than 20 points. But they’re 0-4, when he scores less than 20, since he returned to the lineup in late December.

So the Heat has shown, at times in the past, that it could win without big nights from Butler. But that hasn’t been the case for nearly six weeks.