ESPN Analyst Says It Would Be Best For Miami Heat To Hold Butler Until Summer

Bryan Townes | Jan 4, 2025

Jan 2, 2025; Miami, Florida, USA; Miami Heat forward Jimmy Butler (22) looks on from the bench during the second half at Kaseya Center. Mandatory Credit: Jim Rassol-Imagn Images / Jim Rassol-Imagn Images

During this player empowerment era, many assume if a player requests a trade or is unhappy, the immediate action is to trade them as soon as possible. 

This is not always the case as it's not always a guarantee there will be a benefiting trade out there. Organizations sometimes feel pressured into making bad moves just to get a player off their roster, and end up damaging their future more in the process. The Miami Heat have never been one of those teams. 

As it stands right now, the Heat have their young core set with Tyler Herro and Bam Adebayo leading it. Beyond them, they have their other young draft picks in Nikola Jovic, Pelle Larsson, Jaime Jaquez Jr., and Kel’el Ware. Even if there wasn’t any tension between the team and Jimmy Butler, he likely wasn’t going to be in the Heat’s future beyond a few more years anyway. Which makes his trade request give the Heat a more clear focus into building towards their future. 

ESPN analyst Bobby Marks suggested the Heat do not have to do anything with him right now, and the best option would likely be to keep him away from the team until the offseason. 

“I would send Jimmy Butler home,” Marks said. “I would send him home and have a conversation with him and his agent, Bernie Lee, and say let’s revisit this if there is not a trade by Feb. 6, and let's look at this in the offseason.”

He later explained how a team’s best interest may be to free up cap space instead of taking up bad contracts for other moves down the road. 

“We’re in this landscape of free agency where a player walking away from money or a team going in a different direction and not getting a trade asset like we saw with Paul George, that is sometimes in the best interest of a team when you have that flexibility instead of taking back some bad contracts.”

Bryan Townes is a contributor to Miami Heat On SI. He can be reached at or on X @bryantownesjr11. .