{"id":130250,"date":"2025-03-23T15:51:06","date_gmt":"2025-03-23T19:51:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=130250"},"modified":"2025-03-23T15:51:06","modified_gmt":"2025-03-23T19:51:06","slug":"warriors-jimmy-butler-return-to-miami","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2025\/03\/23\/warriors-jimmy-butler-return-to-miami\/","title":{"rendered":"Warriors’ Jimmy Butler Wants Drama-Free Return to Miami"},"content":{"rendered":"

The chaos and whirlwind that resulted in the\u00a0<\/span>Miami Heat<\/span><\/a>\u00a0shipping\u00a0<\/span>Jimmy Butler<\/span><\/a>\u00a0to the\u00a0<\/span>Golden State Warriors<\/span><\/a>\u00a0earlier in the season is old news and past storylines\u2014which is precisely how Butler wants it to be viewed with his impending return to Miami coming up in a matter of days. Butler’s exit from Miami was rough and not without its suspense and tension. It made for an intriguing storyline leading up to the trade deadline, and rightfully so. <\/span>That said,<\/span> it’s been over a month since the trade, and it’s no longer relevant in Butler’s eyes.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Warriors’ Jimmy Butler Wants Drama-Free Return to Miami<\/h2>\n

Jimmy Butler’s Golden State Warriors Visit the Miami Heat On Tuesday<\/h3>\n

Butler’s hope for a drama-free return to the Kaseya Center might not be exactly what he gets. At least off the court, more so than on it. It’s hard to imagine Heat fans raining down boos from the seats or hurling verbal cues in the form of trash talk. The return to Miami itself might drudge up some drama, more than Butler actually playing in Miami for the first time as a member of an opposing team. You can also bet it will be a running storyline and debate topic on the morning sports shows like ESPN’s\u00a0<\/span>First Take<\/span><\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0<\/span>Get Up<\/span><\/em>, for instance. Although, what they would debate exactly is another question. Show producers will come up with some angle.<\/span><\/p>\n

Butler doesn’t give any credence or thought to any of it, though, and claims the game will be just “another game,” as the old sports cliche goes.\u00a0<\/span>According to ESPN’s Ohm Youngmisuk<\/span><\/a>,\u00a0Butler is focused on the Warriors while the Heat are in the rearview mirror.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, I was traded from there, yada, yada, yada.\u00a0<\/em>Yeah, it didn\u2019t end the way that people wanted to, yada yada yada. But that\u2019s so far behind me now. I don\u2019t even think about it. I don\u2019t pay attention to nothing except for the trajectory of this squad.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Maybe Not For Him, but A Big Game Nonetheless<\/h3>\n

The Warriors are coming off a 124-115 loss to the Atlanta Hawks on Saturday. Although they remain in sixth place in the West standings, avoiding the play-in means winning games.\u00a0<\/span>Miami is reeling<\/span><\/a>, and even without\u00a0<\/span>Steph Curry<\/span><\/a> due to\u00a0<\/span>his recent injury<\/span><\/a>, Tuesday’s tilt with the Heat has significant weight behind it if Golden State wants to keep up the pace in the wins column.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

It might not be a big deal to Butler, but the game is, and so are his teammates’ feelings about it.\u00a0<\/span>Draymond Green<\/span><\/a>\u00a0sees it a little differently. He wants to win the game for Butler, even if Butler wants to win simply for the Warriors’ sake.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

“We got Jimmy over here, I know this is a big game for him,” <\/em>Green said.\u00a0“We want to win for Jimmy, they’re going to want to win for Wiggs [Andrew Wiggins]. We got to come out ready to play.”<\/em><\/p>\n

Since acquiring Butler, the Warriors have changed their outlook on the season. They’ve also raised their expectations of what they can do in the playoffs. While leaving his former city with a win would be a nice bonus for Butler, getting the win as a team holds more value. As for Butler’s return, it’s simply yada, yada, yada.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00a9 John Hefti-Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The chaos and whirlwind that resulted in the\u00a0Miami Heat\u00a0shipping\u00a0Jimmy Butler\u00a0to the\u00a0Golden State Warriors\u00a0earlier in the season is old news and past storylines\u2014which is precisely how Butler wants it to be viewed with his impending return to Miami coming up in a matter of days. Butler’s exit from Miami was rough and not without its suspense […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5081,"featured_media":130251,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[25,1608,16,62],"tags":[409,142,48],"class_list":["post-130250","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-warriors","category-basketball","category-heat","category-nba","tag-draymond-green","tag-jimmy-butler","tag-stephen-curry"],"modified_by":"Aaron J Zacharias","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130250","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5081"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=130250"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130250\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":130256,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130250\/revisions\/130256"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/130251"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=130250"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=130250"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=130250"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}