By TIM REYNOLDS AP Basketball Writer
ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — If Jimmy Butler wants a trade, the Miami Heat have no plans to make him happy.
Heat President Pat Riley — in a rare move — spoke out to address rumors Thursday, saying the team has no plans to trade Butler. It’s a clear sign that, if necessary, the team will be willing to let Butler leave as a free agent and get nothing in return.
“We usually don’t comment on rumors, but all this speculation has become a distraction to the team and is not fair to the players and coaches,” Riley said in a release distributed by the team. “Therefore, we will make it clear — we are not trading Jimmy Butler.”
The Heat play in Orlando on Thursday. Butler did not fly with the team to Orlando on Wednesday night, and his intentions for future games seem a bit unclear as well.
Butler has not asked the Heat for a trade, but ESPN, citing sources it did not name, reported Wednesday that the six-time All-Star wants a trade by the league’s Feb. 6 deadline and is open to joining teams such as Phoenix, Golden State, Houston and Dallas.
“You have to compartmentalize in this business,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said Thursday at the team’s morning shootaround in Orlando. “We want Jimmy here. There’s no ifs, ands or buts about it. And it’s just unfortunate that you have to control or deal with a lot of the noise on the outside.”
Butler, to be fair, has fueled some of the noise.
The primary colors of his reportedly preferred teams include orange, yellow, red and blue. Butler’s hair, perhaps not coincidentally, has been tinged in those colors at times in recent weeks.
“I actually like it,” Butler said earlier this month when asked about being linked to trade talks and speculation. “It’s good to be talked about. I don’t think there’s such a thing as bad publicity — to a point.”
Miami, if it doesn’t trade Butler, would run the risk of potentially losing him for nothing as a free agent next summer. He’s making $49 million this season and has a player option for $52 million next season.
Riley’s statement is another development in a long-running saga involving Butler’s future with the Heat, one that began picking up steam back in May when Riley was noncommittal about giving Butler an extension over the summer.
Butler is eligible for an extension that would guarantee him $113 million for the 2025-26 and 2026-27 seasons. But he is 35 and misses, on average, about one out of every four games in his Heat tenure.
“That’s a big decision on our part to commit those kinds of resources unless you have somebody who’s going to be there and available every single night,” Riley said in May. “That’s the truth.”
Butler twisted an ankle in Miami’s loss to Oklahoma City on Friday but missed the remainder of that game and the next two Heat games — at Orlando last Saturday and against Brooklyn on Monday — with illness, not the ankle, cited as the reason.
Butler has helped Miami make the NBA Finals twice in his Heat tenure. He is averaging 18.5 points, 5.8 rebounds and 4.9 assists this season.
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