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Heat teammates acknowledge 'clarity' with Jimmy Butler situation, 'sucks to see that he won't be around'

Ira Winderman, South Florida Sun-Sentinel on

Published in Basketball

MIAMI — Complete closure will not come until Jimmy Butler is traded. But hours after the Miami Heat suspended the six-time All-Star and began soliciting outside offers, it is evident the team has moved on.

“You go through this league with purity. And then for us, it’s taking it one game at a time,” center Bam Adebayo said ahead of Saturday night’s game against the Utah Jazz at Kaseya Center. “It’s disappointing when you see the organization and a player going head to head like that. But the rest of us got to figure out how to win games.

“So for me as captain, it’s worrying about the other guys and getting them locked in and ready to go to try to compete and win a game.”

All while aware it is unlikely Butler again will suit up as a teammate.

“You live with what happens,” Adebayo said. “Like I said, we’re worried about what we can control, and we can’t control that. Like I said, that’s up to management and him. That is their decision, that’s them communicating with him.

“For us, we still got to go out and play games. So we’re going to worry about that.”

This, Adebayo said, is when leadership needs to move to the forefront.

“Have everybody understand that this is the NBA, this is a part of your career,” he said. “You got to go through ups and downs, you got to figure stuff out and you got to do that while being locked and competing at a high level. That’s what I’m trying to get everybody focused on.

“There’s a lot of noise going around. The biggest thing for us is just keep competing and focus on on-the-court stuff.”

Adebayo said the logistics beyond the court are best left to others.

“Just focus on winning,” he said. “That’s really all I can tell because, one, it’s not any of our business. I know y’all are asking a lot of questions, but it’s none of our business. It’s for Jimmy and for the management to handle and we’ll figure out what happens there. For the rest of us, we mind our business and try to win games.”

 

Guard Terry Rozier spoke as if there already was a finality.

“It’s tough,” he said, “because that’s one of your locker room guys, that’s one of your teammates. So it sucks to see that he won’t be around. But our main focus is to try to win games and control what we can control.

“Obviously, that’s out of our control with the guys in the locker room. But we got a lot of love for him and we wish him the best. We’re just trying to win games now.”

Rozier said those who remain can’t allow it to be a distraction.

“I’m not trying to say it was a distraction, but there’s nothing we have to think about,” he said. “We can go out there and just go play. We don’t have to worry about what’s coming next. We obviously know what’s going on right now. So I think that’s going to be super helpful. It’s going to give us a lot of clarity and I think we’ll be fine.”

Rozier said this is when leadership matters, also mentioning veteran big man Kevin Love.

“We don’t want to get caught up in all the news that’s been going around,” Rozier said. “But we have a great locker room. We got guys like K-Love, who’s a vet, who’s always keeping guys on their toes and making guys laugh. We got a lot of great guys in there. So we move on and we’ll find out what’s best.”

Among those Butler had befriended in the locker room in recent years was forward Nikola Jovic.

“It’s just weird,” Jovic said of the situation. “Of course, it’s the business of basketball. He’s trying to find his joy back, we’re going to find our rhythm back. Like I said, it’s hard to not see him around.

“But I hope everything is going to settle down and we’ll see what’s going to happen. I think there are a lot of things that are possible. But I feel like everybody from the locker room is kind of standing with him and we believe that at the end of the day everything will be good on both ends.”


©2025 South Florida Sun-Sentinel. Visit sun-sentinel.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

 

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