Jimmy Butler is a wrecking ball. It’s his best and his most destructive quality as a basketball player.
Anyone reading this website is surely aware of Butler’s dissatisfaction with the Miami Heat. It follows a similar pattern of dissatisfaction with his stops in Philadelphia and (especially) Minnesota. Ever since Butler overperformed his draft status in Chicago and he was denied the contract extension he deserved, he has made a point of (loudly and often confrontationally) asserting his worth in no uncertain terms.
Butler is often correct in these assessments.
Chicago never should have parted with Butler. Minnesota had other issues festering in the pre-Anthony Edwards era that Butler poured kerosene on in order to force his way to Philly. (Sidebar: Nobody remembers how bad this trade was for Minny.) Philadelphia decided it would rather employ Ben Simmons as Joel Embiid’s sidekick. (Sidebar to the sidebar: Can you believe this actually happened? It was only five years ago!)
And now here we are, 2025, and Jimmy Butler is attempting to go scorched earth on yet another NBA franchise in his efforts to assert his worth, which is in his estimation another long-term max contract after he comes to the end of his current deal.
We don’t need to get into the weeds of any proposed Jimmy Butler trade rumors (plenty of outlets for that sort of speculation) or whether it’s wise for an NBA franchise to sign Butler to a max deal for his age 36-39 seasons (it’s not).
Let’s talk instead about culture.
For the entirety of Butler’s run in Miami, culture was supposed to be the reason why this current situation would never transpire. Jimmy Butler and Heat Culture were an ideal fit – Butler’s fiery disposition and intense work ethic weaved seamlessly into Miami’s outwork-everyone attitude. The Butler-era Heat always overperformed their playoff seeding and Butler would often morph into a combination of Kobe Byrant and Thanos whenever he saw the Boston Celtics or Milwaukee Bucks or any other Eastern Conference team that was allegedly “better” than the Heat.
But time moves fast in the NBA. Nostalgia is poison for any professional basketball franchise attempting to stay competitive. It is now 2025 and the Miami Heat are just another middling play-in team that might lose its draft pick to the Oklahoma City Thunder.
Every team (every company, in fact) loves to talk about its culture. Often, this kind of talk sounds like AI-generated LinkedIn speak. It’s the same 10-15 words (purposeful, excellence, groundbreaking, data-driven insights, tenacity, etc etc) put into a blender and spit into a PowerPoint presentation. “Culture” often sounds pathetic and desperate when it comes from losing organizations. It’s the talk of scam artists and consultants.
In Miami, it sounded stupid until it wasn’t.
Heat Culture transformed from a punchline into a real thing. Erik Spoelstra and Pat Riley practice what they preach. This franchise consistently turns undrafted also-rans into viable big-game role players who then sign eight-figure contracts with other organizations and promptly fall back into anonymity.
However, it is also Heat Culture to ferociously and publicly butt heads with a signature superstar.
Honestly, part of Riley must love this. Ever since taking over as Lakers coach more than four decades ago, Riley seems to thrive on getting into it with superstars. Perhaps it’s his role player side getting annoyed with what he views as “preferential treatment,” or perhaps he’s one of those people who needs a little bit of tension to stay interested, but Riley’s tenure as Heat head honcho has been punctuated with loud dustups with Shaquille O’Neal, Dwyane Wade, LeBron James, and now Butler.
Butler and Riley are almost too similar. Even when it seemed like a match made in heaven, this hellish end seemed almost inevitable.
I don’t know how this situation resolves. It won’t end with a reset back to 2021, that much is for sure. The Jimmy Butler mural in Miami has already been, um, altered by the original muralist. NBA superstars often get their way, which in this case seems to be Butler joining Kevin Durant, Devin Booker, and Mat Ishbia’s bottomless/reckless checkbook in Phoenix. Who knows? Whatever ends up happening, it will be the end of one of the great merges/clashes in NBA history.
So, what is culture? It’s not buzzwords and marketing speak. It’s who you are, warts and all, for better and for worse.
And 1’s.
• We’re starting a book club. This past holiday season, my son, Andrew, and I received more than a half-dozen basketball books – we’re easy to shop for. We have a rule in our house: If our kids want to buy toys or whatever, they must use allowance money. If they want a book, however, Mom and Dad will always buy it. Andrew is about halfway through “The Basketball 100,” the epic 752-page tome from John Hollinger and David Halberstam at The Athletic that seeks to celebrate and categorize the game’s best of the best – the true legends that helped build and advance the best basketball league in the world. I just started reading “There’s Always This Year: On Basketball and Ascension” by Hanif Abdurraqib, which I absolutely adore through the first 37 pages. Check this space for more thoughts on these books, as well as Mike Singer’s biography on Nikola Jokic, Mirim Fader’s look at Hakeem Olajuwon, Sam Anderson’s deep dive into Oklahoma City (which received a coveted five-star Goodreads review from my wife, Kelly), Nick Greene’s famous book about watching basketball like a genius, Chris Bosh’s tender, sensitive examination of basketball and purpose, Rich Coen’s detailed retelling of the fascinating 1987 season, Russ Bengston’s beautifully illustrated tome on sneakers, and several others.
• We all know about Cooper Flagg, Dylan Harper, and Ace Bailey at this point. We’ll be doing deep dives on all these prospects and more once we get the Situational Analysis series up and running in a couple months. But each year around this time, a prospect in that 10-20 range starts to emerge as “my guy” – Bub Carrington last year, Cason Wallace the year before, Tari Eason the year before that. This year, I’m circling JT Toppin from Texas Tech. Much like big brother Obi, JT plays with a ton of energy and enthusiasm. He has great bounce and a terrific nose for the ball – particularly on the offensive glass. He is a little undersized for power forward and doesn’t yet shoot well on the perimeter, but he defends his butt off and he fills every column on the stat sheet (as long as he stays out of foul trouble). I just like watching him play. He reminds me a bit of what Herb Jones looked like coming out of Alabama – terrific athlete, excellent defensive versatility, iffy jumper. Keep an eye on Toppin in Big 12 play.
