{"id":130530,"date":"2025-03-24T15:40:18","date_gmt":"2025-03-24T19:40:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=130530"},"modified":"2025-03-24T15:40:18","modified_gmt":"2025-03-24T19:40:18","slug":"jimmy-butler-brutally-honest-miami-heat-return","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2025\/03\/24\/jimmy-butler-brutally-honest-miami-heat-return\/","title":{"rendered":"Jimmy Butler Gets Brutally Honest Ahead of Miami Return"},"content":{"rendered":"

After a long saga, the Miami Heat<\/a> finally traded Jimmy Butler<\/a> to the Golden State Warriors<\/a> in February. Since then, the Warriors and Heat have been trending in opposite ways following the trade. The Warriors are 16-5 since acquiring Butler and look primed for a solid playoff run. As for the Heat, they own the No. 10 seed in the East and just snapped a 10-game losing streak. On Tuesday, both teams will meet up for the first time since the trade.<\/p>\n

Ahead of the game, Butler spoke about his return to Miami. Additionally, he spoke about potentially having a video tribute. Butler made it clear that “it makes no difference<\/a>” whether the team gives him a tribute or not.<\/p>\n

\u201cWill I watch?\u201d Butler said when asked about the potential of a Heat tribute video after the Warriors held practice at Barry University on Monday afternoon in Miami Shores. \u201cYeah, I\u2019ll watch. If they have one, if they don\u2019t. It makes no difference. It really doesn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Jimmy Butler Gets Brutally Honest Ahead of Miami Heat Return<\/h2>\n

Jimmy Butler Reportedly Had Another Preferred Trade Destination<\/h3>\n

Before the Heat sent him to Golden State, Butler was linked to numerous teams. The most notable one was the Phoenix Suns<\/a>. According to The Athletic’s Anthony Slater, Butler wanted to join the Suns. However, even so, Butler revealed he was never “skeptical” about joining the Warriors.<\/p>\n

“After asking out of Miami, Butler didn\u2019t initially want to be traded to the Warriors. He was trying to muscle his way to the Phoenix Suns because he was more familiar with Kevin Durant<\/a>, Devin Booker<\/a> and Tyus Jones<\/a>, his former teammate. ‘I wasn\u2019t skeptical of coming here,’ Butler said. ‘I just didn\u2019t talk to anybody. \u2026 knew I was going to get this contract no matter what. The people keep talking about it being about the money. How can it be about the money when any team that traded for me, what were they going to do? I just want to win. Where can I go to win?’\u201d<\/p>\n

The Last Word<\/h3>\n

It is still early, but it seems like Golden State was a better option than Phoenix for Butler anyway. They are in a much better position to compete for a title this year. Additionally, Butler also recently spoke about his fit with the Warriors. The Marquette alum detailed his growth and maturity as a player, which he believes can help the Warriors win a title this year.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think I\u2019ve matured a lot and grew into that,\u201d Butler told the media<\/a>. \u201cWhenever I was young in the league, it was always score, score, score, [and] show everybody that you belong in this league. I know that I belong in this league now. I\u2019m comfortable with who I am as a player. So now it\u2019s always about my guys, whatever you all need me to do. [Draymond Green<\/a>]\u2019s the same way. Steph\u2019s the same way. All of us that have been in the league for a little bit. It\u2019s only about winning at this point in time in our career, and for them, it always has been. Not the same for me, but now I\u2019m winning.\u201d<\/p>\n

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

After a long saga, the Miami Heat finally traded Jimmy Butler to the Golden State Warriors in February. Since then, the Warriors and Heat have been trending in opposite ways following the trade. The Warriors are 16-5 since acquiring Butler and look primed for a solid playoff run. As for the Heat, they own the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4631,"featured_media":130531,"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":[1608,2,16,62,3],"tags":[142],"class_list":["post-130530","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-basketball","category-featured","category-heat","category-nba","category-news","tag-jimmy-butler"],"modified_by":"Elie Deglaoui","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130530","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\/4631"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=130530"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130530\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":130537,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130530\/revisions\/130537"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/130531"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=130530"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=130530"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=130530"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}