Dave Hyde: Heat can’t extend Butler’s deal, no matter where that decision leads
Let’s just come out and say it: The Heat can’t extend Jimmy Butler’s contract as NBA convention mandates. They can’t pay him $113 million for two re-done years and keep him until 38.
They have to trade him this offseason, if possible, or live with the unsettling consequences of his playing out the two remaining years on his current deal. It should be open to trading everyone but Bam Adebayo, really, considering this blah roster wasn’t just a healthy Butler from beating Boston in these playoffs.
What’s next?
How to solve a mediocre roster?
One of team president Pat Riley’s extreme makeovers seems in order for the Heat right now. The Butler decisions weighs like no other in that because of the money involved and the fact no player has delivered for the Heat like he has.
Dwyane Wade is the playing face of this franchise. But he won titles beside Hall of Famers like Shaquille O’Neal or LeBron James and Chris Bosh. Butler had a still-developing Adebayo beside him to come within a touch of titles. Don’t dismiss that accomplishment.
But Playoff Jimmy is 35 by next season, the Heat season was a mosh pit of mediocrity, and the Heat didn’t even see if he can still hit those high playoff notes due to injury. Would you bet three years and $162 million he can do so with a contract that takes him to the doorstep of age 38?
Do you want to deal with Regular-Season Jimmy, too? This Jimmy is a prime reason the Heat were a play-in team in the first place over the last two years, too. He put up decent numbers. He also treated the regular season like a dental appointment.
Three games into the season, he took a rest day. The day after watching tennis for eight hours, he called in sick. A team that markets, “Heat Culture,” had to look the other way at such antics with a contending team. Do they keep looking away with a mediocre team?
So, South Florida’s two headline franchises have sticky contract issues to solve this summer involving their biggest names. The Miami Dolphins could have quarterback Tua Tagovailoa play on his fifth-year option considering his health and good-not-great play. All signs point to a new contract coming soon where the details will reveal the grand design.
The Heat similarly don’t have to re-do Butler’s deal. It could have him play on the remaining two years at $110 million. It just has to accept the consequences of not moving that to a three-year, $162 million contact as NBA rules allow.
Jimmy would be unhappy. You’ve seen an unhappy Jimmy cause problems in Chicago, Minnesota and Philadelphia. Would they Heat be added to the list?
The trade option might come down to team disappointed by this spring. Phoenix was just run off the court by Minnesota. Would it trade Kevin Durant or, more likely, try to unload Bradley Beal’s contract? Would Cleveland trade Donovan Mitchell if its playoffs go nowhere?
Finding a trade options for Butler is the Heat’s work coming up. They can’t want to run this team back again. They also can’t lose Butler for so little they’d have to take a step back for a year or two in the manner teams like the Marlins and Dolphins do as second nature.
Heat Culture involves trying to win big each season and trusting if it doesn’t work out they’ll figure it out in the next offseason. They have three titles doing it that way. They also have reached at least the conference finals in three of the past five years. They’re the gold standard in South Florida.
But if we’re going back through Heat history pages, the end of this season in Boston is similar to another five-game series loss to the Celtics. That was 2010. Wade sat at his locker afterward and said: “This isn’t happening again.”
LeBron and Bosh were waiting in the wings.
There’s no re-creating that magic. There’s the need to re-do another roster, though. It’s hard to know where it ends, but it’s clear where it starts no matter how uncomfortable it sounds: They can’t extend Butler. They just can’t.
