MIAMI — The Miami Heat and Jimmy Butler appear to have reached a point of no return, with rumor and conjecture of a trade desire turning into something more tangible after Thursday night’s 128-115 loss to the Indiana Pacers at Kaseya Center.
Insisting he has been cast in a role that does not play to his skill set and robs him of his joy for the game, Butler offered pointed comments moments after coach Erik Spoelstra downplayed Butler’s limited and passive performance against the Pacers.
“What do I want to see happen?” Butler responded rhetorically. “I want to see me get my joy back from playing basketball. And wherever that may be, we’ll find out here pretty soon.
“I want to get my joy back. I’m happy here — off the court. But I want to be back to someone dominant. I want to hoop and I want to help this team win. Right now, I’m not doing that.”
Asked if he could foresee regaining that joy with the Heat, Butler responded, “Probably not.”
For weeks, conjecture has focused on a desire by Butler to be relocated. While Butler’s comments following Thursday night’s loss focused on what he perceives as a diminished role, the overarching element has been the Heat’s lack of desire to offer a contract extension that Butler has been eligible to receive since July.
In recent interviews, Butler had downplayed angst.
But Thursday, after attempting just six shots and scoring just nine points, he followed Spoelstra to the interview podium and debunked Spoelstra’s comments that had minimized Butler’s lack of involvement.
Asked how he felt about his Thursday performance, which often consisted of standing in a corner, Butler said, “It felt great. I felt like I was focused. I felt like I did my job, or at least what my job is now.”
Asked if such limited activity can serve as his role, Butler, 35, said, “It can be my role here. But I mean that’s not what I’m used to being. I haven’t been that since my first, second, third year in the league, where I just went out there and played defense. I competed. I guarded. I tried not to let my man score. But that’s what I’m doing now.”
Spoelstra suggested during his media session of casting Butler more at point guard to get the ball in his hands more often.
Asked if that could be a workable compromise, Butler said, “That ain’t gonna fix it.”
Now, Butler said, he is reduced to playing in a role of complementary component.
“It’s not a tough adjustment to me,” he said. “I’m going out there to compete to win, either way — whether I score or not. I will compete. That’s one thing that I will say. So you won’t say that I’m out there not playing hard. It may look like that, because my usage is down and I don’t shoot the ball a lot.”
Spoelstra was brusque in his opening postgame comments when asked about Butler’s seemingly indifferent approach.
“That had nothing to do with anything,” he said. “We got outplayed from the tip all the way until probably seven minutes, that last group that was in there.”
Spoelstra then spoke of the option of playing Butler at point guard.
“In the second half, we had him playing point just to make sure the ball was in his hands and then the game still got away from us,” Spoelstra said. “So, that was the frustrating part. Obviously, we need him to be aggressive, we need to get him in spots where he can be aggressive. We know how to do that. This game just got away from us.”
To Spoelstra, at least in his postgame comments, it is a strategic issue.
“Whatever we got to do,” he said. “If we got to get him activated, put the ball in his hands and play point. He’s done it before. We know how to get him going, he knows how to get going. These are not two strangers.”
With that, Spoelstra suggested a different Butler would be in play Saturday against the visiting Utah Jazz.
“Aberrational,” he said of Butler’s lack of activity the past two games, “activate on Saturday.”
In fact, before Butler spoke, Spoelstra was dismissive of an external element to Butler’s lack of contribution in his first two games back after missing five due to what first was listed as a stomach ailment.
“Look, he went through it,” Spoelstra said. “Those 13 days, that’s a long time to be away from it. It’s about being aggressive. If we got to figure it out, then we’ll figure it out. He’s got to figure it out, too.
“We got to figure it out. I think that’s an easy storyline.”
The postgame discussion, at least the public discourse, appeared to catch teammates off guard.
“I think it’s a bad night all around,” team captain Bam Adebayo said. “Lose the game, obviously he’s frustrated and he feels like he’s standing in a corner. So he’s got a lot of things going on in his corner.”
As for Butler saying that he might want to find his joy elsewhere, Adebayo addressed the locker-room component.
“You go out there and play basketball still,” Adebayo said. “It’s still our job.
“You hear all the outside noise and we block it out as a team.”
The rest, Adebayo said, is up to Spoelstra, Butler and Heat President Pat Riley.
Asked if he was surprised by Butler’s comments, teammate Tyler Herro said, “Not really. I don’t know. We’re all trying to find joy in it at the same time. So we’ll see.”
