Inside the messy Jimmy Butler saga — and how it all came down to Kevin Durant

THE GOLDEN STATE WARRIORS’ annual celebrity poker tournament features heavy hitters from all over Silicon Valley who pay a premium to play Texas Hold ’em alongside Stephen Curry and the rest of the Warriors’ players and coaches. All the proceeds go to the team’s charitable foundation. No player has ever won the tournament, although Gary Payton II made the final table once. Usually the winner is one of the many poker professionals who enter; a titan of venture capital or technology; or owner Joe Lacob’s wife, Nicole Curran, who has won it twice.

This year, the tournament was quite the scene. Because just after 9 p.m. on Saturday, word started spreading across the floor of the Chase Center that the Dallas Mavericks had just traded 25-year-old superstar Luka Doncic to the Los Angeles Lakers for Anthony Davis. Table by table, hundreds of people all began to pull out their cell phones to see the news for themselves, and then take videos of the players reacting in real time.

Stephen Curry was stunned. Moments later, he walked over to Draymond Green’s table and asked whether he had seen the trade. Green hadn’t, so he walked over to Curry’s table and inspected the post from ESPN’s Shams Charania on Curry’s phone.

Dozens of videos of these moments were captured by people in the Chase Center that night and posted on social media. Neither Curry nor Green could maintain a poker face — at least as far as the Doncic trade was concerned.

But unbeknownst to almost everyone in the room, there was another poker game playing out in the Warriors’ world. This one was just as high-stakes as the massive pot the Lakers and Mavericks had just played, and it involved a clandestine motive to make their own trade deadline shocker by landing Kevin Durant.

By Saturday night, as people around the world were digesting the implications of the massive Doncic trade, multiple sources told ESPN that the Warriors were already deep into negotiations with the Phoenix Suns to reunite Durant with the franchise he won two Finals MVPs and championships with in 2017 and 2018. The teams had secretly been talking since early that week. Durant and his longtime business manager, Rich Kleiman, only learned of the stunning talks when the Suns played the Warriors on Friday, Jan. 31.

It was a lot to digest. So Durant and Curry discussed the idea on Saturday, hours before the poker tournament. Curry wanted to get a read on how Durant would feel about returning to the team he’d chosen to leave after the 2019 Finals, sources said.

Durant told him that it didn’t “feel right” and that this “wasn’t the time” to revisit their basketball partnership, according to multiple sources with knowledge of the conversations. That he was happy in Phoenix and wasn’t looking to play elsewhere.

It was a soft “no,” one that discouraged the Warriors’ decision-makers, but didn’t fully deter them from pursuing talks with the Suns. They hoped Durant’s feeling about a reunion might change once he learned the extent to which Phoenix had engaged in trade conversations with multiple teams without involving him.

For weeks, the Suns and Warriors and Miami Heat had been playing a high-stakes poker game over Durant and disgruntled Heat star Jimmy Butler. Those talks were well known. As were Suns owner Mat Ishbia’s public and private statements over the past year that he wanted Durant to retire as a Sun. But with the Suns free-falling in the Western Conference picture, the Warriors saw an opportunity to play two hands at once.

This was a triangle of increasing desperation and rising stakes: one team desperate to end an exhausting, embarrassing saga with its superstar, one team desperate to upgrade its roster and appease its stars, and one team desperate to extend a flailing dynasty by acquiring a new star.

In the end, the Warriors and Heat chopped the final pot, ending the Butler drama, while the Suns will begin an entirely new, possibly uncomfortable one with Durant.

play

Does Jimmy Butler make the Warriors a title contender?

Brian Windhorst and Monica McNutt break down the Wednesday night trade that sent Jimmy Butler to the Golden State Warriors.

WHILE THE TEAMS were playing poker, Butler had been playing chess. And in both, there is only one objective: to force your opponent to submit. They are zero-sum games. Butler is a zero-sum man.

He wanted out of Miami.

By now, the details of the chess game he played with the Heat are well known: He missed 10 days in late December after leaving a game against the Oklahoma City Thunder with what he and his camp described as an illness. On Christmas, Charania reported Butler’s unhappiness and desire for a trade. Team president Pat Riley issued a statement meant to squash those trade rumors. But when Butler returned to the team, he engaged in what the team would later call “multiple instances of conduct detrimental to the team over the course of the season and particularly the last several weeks,” and Miami suspended him for seven games on Jan. 3.

After meetings with Riley and owner Micky Arison did not resolve the situation, Butler briefly returned to the team. On Jan. 22, he angered the team when he went to a charity event and skipped the team’s flight to Milwaukee. The team had denied his request to fly himself to the game later in the day, but when he ignored it, Butler was suspended for another two games. Butler was slated to return from that suspension on Jan. 27, but during a morning shootaround to prepare for a game that night against the Orlando Magic, he became upset after learning he had lost his starting job as Heat coach Erik Spoelstra started to go over the game plan. Butler left the floor, dressed and went home. That afternoon, the Heat suspended him for the third time, this time indefinitely. Officially, that will go down as the final straw in this saga.

Miami submitted and agreed a trade was the only way out of the situation. It was yet another stormy exit, similar to his departures from the Chicago Bulls and Minnesota Timberwolves, when those relationships went sour.

What hasn’t been fully understood is why Butler so badly wanted to leave the franchise he had led to two Finals appearances in six years.

“Read whatever you want to read, believe what you want to believe, but you’re not around me every day,” Butler told ESPN. “There’s always two sides of every story and only one side’s been told.”

Asked when he would tell his side, Butler demurred. “I doubt I will. But if I do tell it, I’m going to tell it to Shaq.”

Throughout this saga, Butler has often spoken publicly in riddles or coded messages. This one isn’t hard to decode.

Shaquille O’Neal also had a falling-out with Riley. They famously nearly came to blows after practice one day in Miami in 2008, avoided only because Alonzo Mourning stepped in between them. This story is told often in Heat circles. As is the story of the eight-hour practice that Riley put the team through after a player complained about the drudgery of NBA life. Dwyane Wade called it the “iron fist.” Others lump it all together under the umbrella of “Heat culture.”

Butler’s desire to be traded from Miami has been interpreted as a repudiation of Heat culture. And in many ways, that is true. But he insists he had other reasons.

“I did what I was supposed to do,” Butler said. “We didn’t see eye to eye on some things.”

One of those was a potential extension, which Riley famously said in May the Heat weren’t ready to discuss yet for a player who played in only two-thirds of the regular season. Riley also criticized Butler for saying the Heat would’ve beaten the New York Knicks or the Boston Celtics if he had been healthy in the playoffs.

Butler was taken aback by the criticism at the time, but he insists that’s not why he soured on the franchise or Riley.

“I don’t need Pat to make nothing right with me,” Butler said. “I expect everybody to talk. They’re still going to talk and I’m going to do what I always do and put my head down.”

In his meetings with Riley and Arison in early January, Butler explained that he had grown frustrated with the Heat’s inability to acquire more help for him after the 2020 and 2023 Finals runs, sources said. That frustration only grew when he felt the team had deemphasized his role in the offense this season.

According to ESPN Research, Butler averaged just 56.5 touches this season and brought the ball up the floor just 11.4 possessions per game, both his lowest marks in a season since joining the Heat.

Instead of the offense running through him, Butler was used more as a spacer in either corner for 7.6 on-ball screens per game this season, his highest mark in a season since joining the Heat. His 17.0 points per game was his lowest since 2013-14, his first season as a starter.

Heat sources counter that they had to adjust the offense because Butler missed so many regular-season games. He played an average of just 58 over his first five seasons in Miami. The last time he played 65 — the NBA’s current minimum to qualify for postseason honors — was 2018-19, when he split the season between Minnesota and Philadelphia.

While Butler was frustrated by a reduced role, Heat sources insist that Riley’s message to Butler throughout the year was that he needed to be more involved with the team.

When Butler sprained an ankle Nov. 8 at Denver, he asked to rehab at his home in Southern California, where he had a whole facility and team in place. He didn’t want to rehab in hotels for the long road trip in Minnesota, Detroit and Indianapolis. It was not an unusual request by Butler, and the Heat had previously granted him such leeway. Spoelstra initially agreed to it, but this time, team sources said Riley declined the request, insisting that it was important that he stay connected to the team while he rehabilitated.

Butler did not take it well. But he continued his strong play for the Heat once he returned — even putting up a monstrous 35-point, 19-rebound, 10-assist game against Detroit on Dec. 16.

The next game was a fateful one against Oklahoma City that started the clock on what would become a six-week chess match. Butler played just seven minutes and didn’t attempt a single shot.

During their meeting on Jan. 7, Riley tried to convince Butler to stay the rest of the season, sources said. The Heat had walloped Butler with a stunning seven-game suspension, infuriating the players’ union and leading to a filing of a grievance. But Riley had hoped to mend fences and even posited that if the meeting went well, sources said, there was a chance they could end the suspension early and Butler could fly to Salt Lake City the next day and join the team. Riley has a long history of challenging players, but also moving past disputes, including interludes with players like O’Neal and Wade.

Over the past 30 years, Arison had seen Riley work and hoped he and Butler could come to an understanding. On vacation on his yacht in the Caribbean, Arison made plans to dock in the Bahamas so Butler could fly out to meet him, sources said.

But the meeting didn’t go well, sources said. Butler reiterated his trade request and said he would never sign another contract with the team. Arison tabled his discussion with Butler, who remained suspended.

There are differing accounts of exactly what transpired in the meetings between Riley and Butler and the subsequent meeting between Butler and the Arisons — Micky and Nick — on Jan. 16.

Everyone agrees that each meeting contained emotional, heated discussions. The Athletic earlier Friday morning reported that Butler described Riley as “unhinged” during their meeting. However, Heat sources told ESPN that the same word — “unhinged” — is how they described Butler’s behavior in his meeting with the Arisons.

play

Stephen A. ‘not moved at all’ by Jimmy Butler joining Warriors

Stephen A. Smith breaks down why Jimmy Butler on the Warriors doesn’t change the outlook for the team this season.

THE WARRIORS AND Suns were among the first teams to register interest in Butler once it became clear the Heat would honor his trade request in early January. Butler preferred a trade to the Suns, sources said, because they indicated a willingness to give him a long-term extension and there was an opportunity to play alongside Durant and Devin Booker. For that to happen, however, Phoenix would have to find a team willing to accept their underperforming third star, Bradley Beal, and the $110 million remaining on his contract that came with a no-trade clause. The Heat were never one of those teams.

The Suns knew trading Beal was going to be difficult. He was steadfast in his desire to use his no-trade clause to stay in Phoenix. Still, they canvassed the league.

For weeks, the Suns tried to construct multiteam trades that would land Butler in Phoenix and Beal on some other team. But when Miami would cross-check with the teams Beal would supposedly land on in these constructions, they’d get conflicting information.

What was the point of discussing specifics if Phoenix hadn’t yet solved the biggest impediment to the deal: Beal’s no-trade clause?

The Heat, who had discussed trading for Beal in 2023 before he landed in Phoenix, were not interested in taking him on, in part for the same reason they stopped their initial pursuit of him. Beal had indicated that even if he’d waive his no-trade clause to facilitate a move now, he would retain it in his new home. That was a nonstarter for Miami, and for most of the NBA.

Of all the teams Phoenix canvassed, sources said only the Washington Wizards and Atlanta Hawks would consider taking on Beal if he’d waive his no-trade clause to go there. Phoenix clung to that hope for weeks, hoping that if they could somehow improve their package to incentivize these teams to participate, and other trades the Wizards and Hawks were working on fell through, then maybe there would be a path to a deal.

Even then, there was still the matter of whether Beal would waive his no-trade clause and accept the trade.

The Heat stayed patient throughout this process but never relented on being unwilling to take back Beal — and his no-trade clause — in what would’ve been a simple 1-for-1 trade.

Butler grew frustrated, sources said, taking the Heat’s refusal to make a deal with Phoenix and send him where he wanted to go as a personal affront.

All along, the Heat had been talking to other teams about “concepts” for Butler. Each of those teams had an interest in Butler, but were leery of proceeding with a formal offer if he preferred to be elsewhere.

Miami liked Golden State’s concept, which centered around Andrew Wiggins and the Warriors’ 2025 first-round pick, which right now would land in the lottery. Wiggins was the kind of young, athletic, small forward the Heat would need to replace Butler.

There was an irony to this. When Butler first came to the Heat in summer 2019, Butler was in Riley’s office celebrating the signing of the four-year, $142 million deal that landed him in Miami. The two men cracked open a bottle of Screaming Eagle cabernet from Riley’s personally curated wine cellar inside the Heat offices. Riley was telling stories, and he asked Butler who the most talented player he ever played with was. Butler answered quickly: Wiggins, the 2014 No. 1 pick and his teammate with the Timberwolves.

Riley was surprised, those who were in the room remembered, and joked that Butler might need to be cut off from any more wine. But Butler insisted. Wiggins’ talent was incredible. Five years later, they were traded for each other.

Wiggins has gone on to become an All-Star and NBA champion, though his previous two seasons left the Warriors looking for an upgrade. From the Heat’s perspective, he didn’t need the ball as much as Butler, which Miami felt would make for a seamless transition on a team that’s been led offensively this year by first-time All Star Tyler Herro.

Earlier this week, with the trade deadline looming Thursday, and the Suns no closer to convincing Washington or Atlanta to facilitate by taking Beal, the Heat decided to engage more seriously with Golden State.

That’s when Miami learned that the Suns and Warriors were deep into negotiations for Durant.

When the Suns were first mentioned as a possible Butler destination, they made it clear they did not want to trade Durant; the intention was to pair Butler with Durant and Booker, team sources insist, building a better Big Three than the Beal-Booker-Durant trio had proven to be. But with the team still hovering near .500, and particularly after two consecutive losses to the Portland Trail Blazers, the Suns felt they had to do something, sources said. Trading Booker, the 28-year old who became the franchise’s leading scorer over the weekend, was a complete nonstarter. It would either be Beal or Durant. And since Beal was proving impossible to move, they began to explore the idea of trading Durant with the Warriors and other teams.

THERE IS NO good way to move a future Hall of Fame player who has professed a desire to stay with your franchise despite a second straight underachieving season. But there are definitely bad ways to go about it. Not telling that player or his agent, and having them find out through other sources would qualify as a bad process.

Internally, the Suns have already conceded that point.

“We should’ve gone through [Durant’s business partner, Rich Kleiman],” one team source told ESPN.

Instead, a frantic 48 hours ensued in which, as Charania reported, Durant had to send a final word he had no desire in a reunion with the Warriors and did not want to go back to the Bay Area.

“Probably the same reasons he left,” a Warriors’ source conceded. “It would’ve been a f—ing circus.”

Durant, however, would have been open to playing for the Heat, sources said, so Miami debated cutting the Warriors out completely and dealing Butler to Phoenix for Durant, sources said.

Riley, after all, had wanted Durant for years. In 2016, Riley landed one of the famous meetings in the Hamptons where Durant took pitches from various teams and the Warriors closed by getting Curry to sell Durant on a partnership. Riley had tried again in 2019 when Durant left Golden State for the Brooklyn Nets but ended up pulling off a shrewd sign-and-trade for Butler that summer instead.

It was there to be done, Durant to Miami, and the teams traded proposals, sources said. But Phoenix, which paid for Durant in 2023 with four first-round picks and three pick swaps to Brooklyn, was seeking significant compensation for the player, who is now 36 and under contract for just one more season. Ultimately, Miami felt it would be mortgaging its future by going down the path with Durant, sources said, and they decided not to move forward in the talks. The third attempt to land Durant would not be the charm for Riley and Heat.

The three-way talks even expanded to loop in Washington. Those talks included Butler, Warriors forward Jonathan Kuminga, Wizards center Jonas Valanciunas, two first-round picks (from the Warriors) and two second-round picks (one each from the Heat and Warriors), and pick swaps going to the Suns, sources said. The Warriors would’ve received Durant, while the Heat could’ve received Wiggins, Cleveland’s 2025 first-round pick (via Phoenix), Dennis Schroder and Kyle Anderson.

The Heat, however, wanted the Warriors’ 2025 first-round pick, not the Cavs’, which is likely to be No. 29 or 30. This is one of the problems with multiteam trades — sometimes two teams want the same piece.

The Warriors didn’t like the deal, either, uneasy at the steep price Phoenix was asking for Durant. At one point, sources said, Golden State debated acquiring Butler from Miami in a standalone deal, then using him as leverage in their conversations with Phoenix for Durant. This would’ve effectively blocked the Suns’ long-standing desire to pair Durant with Butler and given some leverage to the Warriors as they angled to get a Durant deal done.

Ultimately, with just hours to go, the three-way talks collapsed.

Eventually, Miami and Golden State iced Phoenix out and did the deal for Butler they had talked about for weeks. The Heat were comfortable with the package they had discussed with Golden State, centered around Wiggins and the Warriors’ top-10-protected draft pick. The last piece was getting Butler totally on board, and that happened Wednesday morning when Golden State reached out and started discussions on a new contract for Butler. By the evening there was an agreement, two years and $111 million and time for more Screaming Eagle.

It was simple on paper, but not in practice.

The Warriors were in Utah getting ready for a game against the Jazz when the trade was agreed upon. Curry was in the middle of his famous pregame shooting routine. Wiggins was, too. Schroder was in the shower. Kerr called his team into the locker room to inform everyone of the trade.

“It’s tough,” Kerr said. “You develop these relationships with guys. They give you everything and commit to the team. They got families.”

In Phoenix, the phones were quiet. The Heat were no longer engaging the Suns on Durant. The Wizards, who had been in discussions about joining the deal and taking Jusuf Nurkic off the Suns’ hands in a move that would save cap space, also moved on, and traded Valanciunas to the Sacramento Kings. The Warriors, having agreed to Durant’s wishes to avoid a reunion, were focused on the Heat.

In the evening, word started to leak out that Butler was nearing a contract agreement, a sign the Warriors would be landing him and the Suns were out. The Suns were deflated, sources said. For weeks they’d exhausted themselves in discussions to find a way to turn Beal into Butler, several times thinking they might have a pathway in sight.

Then they explored turning Durant into Butler and other pieces that could’ve retrofitted their roster and given them some options this season and beyond.

The Suns had scored some major transactional victories over the previous two years. They landed Durant in a blockbuster. They won an inventive bidding war for Beal. They creatively pulled in Royce O’Neale in a nice piece of business last February. Over the summer, they scored when they got Tyus Jones to come for a minimum contract.

But this time, they were left in the cold. And to make matters worse, they have a mess to clean up with Durant, who wanted to stay in Phoenix and make it work, but instead saw his name in trade rumors.

Durant was “blindsided,” as Charania reported on “NBA Today,” that the Suns had trade discussions about him. But ultimately, Durant did not change his mind about reuniting with the Warriors.

Despite long odds, the Suns never folded. But hampered by the realities of second apron restrictions, what was once a three-handed final table turned heads-up. Phoenix was out.

play

Jimmy Butler: I’m very happy I’m not getting suspended anymore

Jimmy Butler talks for the first time since his trade to the Warriors and expresses how eager he is to return to the court.

BUTLER RUSHED THROUGH Los Angeles traffic Thursday night to meet his new team. If he could make it by 6:30 p.m., the Warriors would have time to introduce him publicly before their 7 p.m. tipoff against the Lakers.

He made it with time to spare, beaming as he walked past the marquee inside Crypto.com Arena.

“I’m so happy,” he told ESPN’s Malika Andrews, who asked whether he was happy to be there or happy to be out of Miami.

“Both!” Butler said.

How he’ll fit into the Warriors motion offense and culture remains to be seen. Golden State was drawn to Butler for all the same reasons Miami was back in 2019. The Warriors have lacked confidence and discipline in pressure situations this year. Butler has both of those in spades. The Warriors have lacked a secondary scorer to carry the team when Curry is off the floor. Butler will be the best option they’ve had since Durant. In the best-case scenario, Butler will fit into the Warriors like Dennis Rodman fit into the Chicago Bulls in 1995, when they acquired him to jolt their flailing dynasty. Kerr was there for that experiment. He saw how Phil Jackson managed Rodman, letting the free-spirited power forward be himself while also earning his trust and buy-in to the team’s concepts.

It’s not hard to imagine a worst-case scenario, however. The Warriors are currently tied with Sacramento for 10th in the West and the final play-in tournament slot. Butler said all the right things about his respect for the Warriors’ championship pedigree, but he used to say good things about Heat culture, too.

For now, the Warriors are optimistic. The Heat are relieved. The Suns and Durant are still uncomfortably together, at least until the summer. And Butler is happy.

“You want to be wanted,” Butler said. “You want somebody to want you to help you win, to let you be the player that you are capable of being. I get to be that here and I’m going to be that here for a long time. Hopefully for the rest of my career.

“You would hope that that’s what that was in Miami but it’s not. That’s OK. That chapter is behind me and we’re going to turn the page.”