Could Miami Trade Jimmy Butler? | The Bill Simmons Podcast

Could Miami Trade Jimmy Butler? | The Bill Simmons Podcast

did you see the clip of Butler the Sparks game talking about number 22 and then yeah he did a tweet and there’s just a lot of breadcrumbs being dropped really from that Pat Riley press conference and some of the stuff spoler said and Miami is making it clear we love this guy but we’re also really disappointed with how this season went is is the read I’m getting from them we want our best guy if we’re going to pay him this much money to play basketball more and we want to have more success and we appreciate 23 and we appreciate 20 but moving forward we’re we’re not doing this anymore and then you have Jimmy on the other side you know winking at the Lakers and it just rilla we’ve been here a lot of times when the breadcrumbs start dropping I take notice the first thing I thought of from the most recent footage is that’s why he tells his assistant he’s like I stop telling me I need to sign up for Rya I don’t I don’t need to I’m good I just I show up in a jersey and it’s on um the other thing where this all started was maybe it’s preat Riley basically calling him out for talking [ __ ] about the Celtics I mean that was a really rare thing that happened he basically called him out he called him out yeah he he did something so many other GMS are so afraid of doing because there’ll be times you’ll hear stories about well why did you do this why did you do that and be like we’re always in fear we’re living in fear all of the time now 30 GMS may not agree with me with that but there’s enough GMS that live in fear of doing all the little extra Things Catering to the star the entire time for just that fear that one day he’s going to walk in and say hey I actually want out of here and you have Riley on the other side just going nope like I’m not I’m not even I’m going to go out of my way to publicly criticize you even though you’re the face of the franchise and Riley may have done it without any idea of a backup plan now maybe with Riley having this many decades in this sport maybe he’s on the short list of guys with enough juice that can pull it off and do it but then you you’d have to also want to do it and Riley clearly wanted to do that the same way when LeBron left Miami that’s the big one two days before when he called him out yeah yeah and he got out there and he was just he was letting him have it in a way this is hard speech yeah yeah right this is hard you’re not supposed to bail just because you didn’t win the title one year it’s hard to win the title this great it’s one of my favorite rallying moments I would add to what you just said though Riley’s old and I think old people hit the point sometimes in all aspects of life where they’re just like [ __ ] it yeah it’s like the old Jerry Seinfeld joke about old people backing out of the driveway where they hit a point where they’re like [ __ ] it and they’re just go back care if cars are coming they just go backwards yeah guys the gym same thing like there’s a certain age I believe they get together like you hit 70 they all have a meeting they pull you aside and they just say hey balls everywhere it’s over we don’t have to worry about it anymore I’m convinced soon if you’re still in the gym lifestyle at 70 years old I’m sure that somebody reaches out to you like oh saw you have a birthday coming up next week here’s the protocol so they s out about first first base coaches too first base and third base coaches balls out anyway I interrupt SC them high because we agree there’s there’s something that happens and certainly Riley is is north of that age and also whatever accomplishments you would need to feel comfortable doing that and also job security on top of everything else because the butler thing’s still unsettled and if it were unsettled maybe they’re like hey he’s older and this is their ceiling so I don’t even care but he may have done this if he was just extended in 32 years old who knows well and then the other piece of this ecosystem where teams aren’t allowed to Tamper but teams are are allowed to put it out there off the Record to reporter like ah like a Philly situation H we have a lot of c space we love Jimmy just kind of put that Phil Love by the way Philly loves everyone they go down the list on anyone who makes more than 20 million year they love them um but he’s somebody that I I don’t know if they have the assets but the Lakers one is pretty fun because you could CRA you could put salaries together with picks I think they’d have to I think Miami would have to get a third piece I don’t think Mi feels like they’re I just always feel like they’re a team that needs the player coming back and they’ve really never prioritized draft picks so keep going right so if they’re doing if it’s like ruy hatcham more and Gabe Vincent and multiple picks I don’t think Miami is gonna be like oh cool now we’re out of the Jimmy Butler business like they they want stars and big ass players so if they’re moving Butler whatever version that he gets from whatever team would go somewhere else to get somebody that they actually want like the Mel Bridges Brandon Ingram whoever they talk themselves into I think that would be why you do it the bigger question for me is just does Miami feel like they just had this incredible run at the blackjack table with with Butler right four years they made two finals he played great he’s probably a Hall of Famer now it couldn’t have gone better and now it’s like 2:30 in the morning and this is like when I’m I’m at the casino and they’re starting to vacuum and s’s like let’s go and I’m like no no one more hand and I think I think Miami is like they’re vacuuming it’s we should we should go let’s go cash the chips in and that’s what I wonder with this Butler thing are they just like this is only gonna get worse he’s older he’s got a ton of miles on him he misses 20 to 30 games every year we’ve peaked with our the East is better the West is way way way better and we are paying for past performance now let’s move on now they locked into Butler too I mean they Miami finds a way where whether it’s all the guys going down there to start the heedles they had the right situation they had the right star in place already remember when all of those guys did their extensions we’re like why do those guys do shorter rookie extensions like why was that why was car car never got the memo right right he wasn’t on the text thread so and that was that was the next extension I don’t I don’t believe that was the extension because LeBron came in um seven years prior but when I think about that it’s like okay I’ll give you some credit but I don’t know if it’s just the heat way like the heat way was at an alltime it was a 52 week high in 2023 the whole heat culture deal and all that kind of stuff but sometimes I think there’s a mistake of just believing because of that and then figuring out a way to get off the wh side stuff and then getting Butler in there that they’re just supposed to lock into the next one you forgot Anthony Carter in 2003 that was the best one because that they agent [ __ ] up his contract they were able to get rid of him basically they they were able to steal Lamar odm from the quippers and then a year later get shaed because they because of Anthony Carter basically so they’ve had some some positive luck moments that they took advantage of well big time too because the Sha part of it remember it’s because he wasn’t going to get the extension from La La makes their choice they move on from Shaq and then Miami’s like we’ll do it and it completely works out but those last couple years for Shaq we’re going to going to be dark and then luckily they had a new owner syndrome deal in PH Phoenix with Robert saror being like this is going to be awesome it’s like this goes against everything that you guys have been doing basketball wise here for a while so you could go through a bunch of franchises and say hey that worked out or they got lucky there with all these different things but it feels like Miami more than any other franchise we just assume I guess it’s going to happen again and we can read the breadcrumbs and all the flirting and all the stuff that Butler wants to do and he’s a difficult guy he’s a difficult guy but he’s their guy and he was their best option at the time I don’t I just never see them in rebuild mode I just don’t I mean not with bam well bam and not with not with bam and spoler where you’re like no I’m agreeing with you you bam and spoler and you have some good peripheral pieces and then you have the butler piece and but they still need that one score and at least Butler’s that whatever his limitations are and the frustrations of how he treats the regular season and maybe talking yourself into a ceiling that’s a little bit higher based on the Run of 23 I love bam every team should want a bam right he’s like one of those guys but yeah I don’t know how aggressive they would get maybe they’re just afraid of what Butler’s going to be like without an extension and that’s what they already know and why this is already happening or it’s like the classic little both sides winking at other people at the bar but ultimately they’re going to get back together but I I just feel like there’s a lot of smoke [Music]

The Ringer’s Bill Simmons is joined by Ryen Russillo to discuss the Jimmy Butler trade rumors.

For more from The Ringer:
Shop: https://theringer.com/shop
Website: http://theringer.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/ringer
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ringer
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ringer