The ink is not even dry yet on the trade sending Jimmy Butler to the Golden State Warriors, but the Miami Heat are already scrubbing any leftover traces of him.
On Thursday, Miami formally announced the multi-team trade involving Butler heading to the Warriors and Andrew Wiggins headlining the return package for the Heat. In the middle of the official release, the Heat made a ruthless announcement. They revealed that Wiggins will be wearing the No. 22 jersey for them.
Here is the link to the release, where you can also see an edited image of Wiggins wearing No. 22.
No. 22 is, of course, the jersey number that Butler had worn for the Heat ever since arriving there in 2019. After he made multiple All-Star and All-NBA teams while in Miami and also led the Heat to two different Finals berths, Butler’s number has already been repurposed and given off to his replacement some 24 hours after word of the trade first broke.
Granted, Butler torched any chances of an eventual jersey retirement with how unprofessionally and disrespectfully he conducted himself to end his Heat tenure. Miami also does not retire many jerseys and has done so just six total times for players who played for them (Chris Bosh’s No. 1, Dwyane Wade’s No. 3, Tim Hardaway’s No. 10, Shaquille O’Neal’s No. 32, Alonzo Mourning’s No. 33, and Udonis Haslem’s No. 40).
But you would think that there might at least be some unofficial moratorium period before the Heat gave away Butler’s number to somebody else. Butler probably isn’t too mad about it though and has already decided on his new jersey number for the Warriors too.
