The Golden State Warriors will travel to the Kaseya Center in Florida to take on the Miami Heat on Tuesday night, in a game that will mark Jimmy Butler's return to the city of Miami after getting traded earlier this season. While Butler still has fans in the crowd, he has a lot of bad blood with the organization after his messy exit.
Even with the messiness of what transpired, Butler's former teammate Bam Adebayo discussed Jimmy's return to the franchise with excitement.
“It’s gonna be a great game. I feel like it’ll be high-intensity. It’s gonna be a great game for both teams and we’ll see who walks out with the W.”
The Heat and Warriors will enter this game with fairly opposite fortunes since the trade. The Heat have gone 5-17 since making the trade, finally adding a win tonight by defeating the Charlotte Hornets.
The Warriors have gone 15-4 since acquiring Jimmy. While there have been shock losses to undermanned Dallas Mavericks and Denver Nuggets squads, the Warriors have looked mostly elite.
Butler recently reflected on his time with the Heat, coldly dismissing the two NBA Finals runs he made with Adebayo by his side.
“We were alright. We didn’t win anything like we were supposed to. So I don’t know. We made some cool runs. We had some fun. I think that’s all we did.”
Adebayo is averaging 20.0 points and 9.0 rebounds since Butler left while Butler is averaging 17.6 points, 6.1 rebounds, and 6.5 assists with the Warriors. Even though the Heat were maximizing results with an unhappy Butler when he was on the roster, they've just not been competitive since losing the star for incoming assets.
Tyler Herro Doesn't Think Jimmy Butler's Jersey Should Be Retired
With Butler downplaying the two Finals he made with the Heat, it seems it became an organizational trend. It's easy to forget how Heat fans were trying to say he's better than prime LeBron James during their 2020 and 2023 Finals runs, as his status has fallen from there to not even being in line for a jersey retirement anymore.
Former protege and teammate Tyler Herro seemingly confirmed the same by expressing why he thinks Butler's jersey shouldn't be retired.
“Jimmy is definitely a Heat legend, but I feel with how things transpired over the last couple of months. I think 22 can be worn again”
There's no point in retiring the jersey of a five-year veteran who took the franchise to two Finals appearances. If he did something like that with the Minnesota Timberwolves, his jersey would be retired faster than anything.
However, the Heat are just as young a franchise as Minnesota but have three championships to their name and employ some of the biggest modern stars in the game.
Butler could've earned that status even if he just unassumingly retired on the Heat given what he meant to the fanbase, but he didn't want to settle for less than what he's worth. Now the Warriors fanbase is hailing his greatness while the Heat look directionless.
