Jimmy Butler will be traded very soon, leaving another franchise to recover from his departure.
Pat Riley and the Miami Heat will have yet another franchise player exit under disappointing circumstances, and everyone will say Heat Culture lives on.
Riley, as the old gunslinger who’s thrived in virtually every era of the NBA, will move on to his next big plan as team president, and he won’t be charred or look any worse for wear because of the equity he’s built in the court of public opinion.
Perhaps he’s earned that trust, especially when juxtaposed against Butler, who has no issue in looking like the villain even if he’s not.
He’s a principled villain, if anything. A rebel with a cause.
Butler’s transgressions, whether they’ve been tacitly excused, ignored or merely quietly documented by chapter and verse, have cost him games on multiple suspensions. If these crimes are so bad, one would think the Heat franchise would’ve nipped them in the bud rather than let them pile up in order to put the hammer down.
In a battle of wills, Pat Riley always wins and will wait it out until he wins — no matter the opponent or cost.
The newly implemented collective bargaining agreement means more standoffs and uncomfortable situations are bound to happen — teams will have to make more shrewd decisions even as the money continues to grow.
And unintended consequences of second aprons helped create this particular circumstance, even if Riley didn’t need the threat of harsh penalties to assert his dominance or, at the least, get back his pound of flesh in ways he couldn’t over LeBron James.
Because being right seems to lord over getting it right.
Being right meant standing firm against the greatest player of this generation at the peak of his powers, not giving James free reign over the kingdom he built, and he was willing to lose James over it — even if James was ultimately destined to head back to Cleveland and, later, Los Angeles.
Being right meant letting Dwyane Wade walk when he wouldn’t reward Wade’s salary sacrifice with a max contract as Wade entered his golden years. Getting it right meant bringing Wade back into the family after Wade had stops in Chicago and Cleveland for a short stretch.
Will it hurt Miami in the big picture with other future free agents? It’s hard to say because guys won’t flat-out come forward and bash another franchise in the aftermath of a choice, and Miami still has the benefit of being Miami, with the water, weather and other ancillary attributes.
There are only so many free-agent destinations, and with this CBA there will be fewer ways to poach developed stars from their homes — what happened in the summer of 2010 feels like it could never happen again, not in one fell swoop.
And Riley treating one of the three best players in team history this way, deserved or not, isn’t a great look when the future margins are thinner.
Riley always has to be right, even if it costs the franchise. But if Riley won’t reward players for what they’ve achieved in the past, if he can be cold-hearted and calculated, pragmatic and principled when the analytics say said player isn’t worth what he’s asking for, then why does he earn unchecked loyalty and never get told he’s wrong when he’s entering his golden years?
Riley, one could argue, is one of the league’s 10 most influential figures since the explosion of the game began with the arrival of Magic Johnson and Larry Bird. Perhaps unwillingly, or at least as long as it served him and his image, Riley served as the godfather of player empowerment — creating the cap space for Miami to serve as home for James, Wade and Chris Bosh.
The entire NBA bows and kisses the ring of its version of Michael Corleone — the forever slicked-back hair, cold eyes and grizzled yet graceful face.
He still drips with charisma when talking to the public, stepping out of the shadows to speak, to put words to speculation. Riley’s pride and, perhaps, unrealistic ambition, led him to go as far as asking the New York Knicks for a piece of ownership while having the keys to the Heat in his back pocket, always with a Plan B.
While this feels like it’s all about Butler muscling his way from another franchise, it’s about much more in today’s state of affairs — where commissioner Adam Silver has to massage the wants of owners who want to be assured of profit, the ability to compete and equal talent distribution, even though all these ideals are opposed to each other and what we were taught this NBA is supposed to be.
Maybe, after years of falling to the whims of often inept leadership and team building, the players felt due in taking every ounce from the platter of empowerment, leaving not a scrap on the table. They didn’t even give lip service to the belief this was a partnership between labor and management, and for awhile, in some corners, it was cheered.
But when excess occurred and the pendulum began to swing back to balance, there was a longing to go back to the good old days, when dirty laundry was often quieted, business was done and the public was none the wiser.
Riley, as much as he benefited from that empowerment, represents power and order. Structure. My way or take your private jet somewhere else.
Sometimes, it’s hard to let go of the mystique you’ve built. As much as Riley deserves a statue in Los Angeles, one likely will be erected in Miami — even if he’s a relic of a time that truly no longer exists.
He’s one of the few figures in the NBA that seems completely infallible. When the Heat advanced to the Finals with undermanned rosters, teams nobody actually believed to be a championship threat, Riley was celebrated as much as Butler was on the floor for leading overachievers into battle and as much as Erik Spoelstra was for orchestrating pristine game plans to outperform better opponents.
Even when reality hit the Heat there were rarely words uttered about Riley failing to surround Butler with talent worthy of his elevated play, or giving Spoelstra more to work with. It was a feel-good story, a team valiant in defeat as opposed to overwhelming victors.
Even now, as it’s clear Riley is doing everything he can to punish Butler in his pockets and reputation with suspension after suspension in the interim of the inevitable, he’s shielded from accountability.
Butler will have to own his, in part because he’s too prideful to say he’s anything other than what he is. Riley is too prideful to do what the unofficial NBA rulebook says he should’ve done, when he was unwilling to invest in a Jimmy Butler extension over the summer — trade your star before he enters his opt-out year.
Perhaps he was too high on his own supply to follow the book, because how often have the rules applied to him?
“Coach Pat, that’s me to a T,” Butler said to Yahoo Sports in his first few months in Miami during the 2019-20 season, smiling because he’d somehow found a kindred spirit who was just as ornery and dogged, and just as competitively petty as himself.
Both sides are finding out just how alike they are.
