It was a long and winding road to get there, but the Jimmy Butler saga has finally reached its end. The 35-year-old forward was traded on Wednesday night to the Golden State Warriors in a four-team deal that also saw Andrew Wiggins and Kyle Anderson end up in Miami and Dennis Schroder go to Utah. As part of the deal, Butler has also signed a two-year extension with Golden State in what seems to be the Warriors’ last great push to contend with their Steph Curry-Draymond Green core.
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Butler is now on his way to play for Steve Kerr, but as ESPN’s Brian Windhorst reports, a different blockbuster deal was nearly consummated instead.
“This can be qualified, I think, as a genuine what-if, because there was a trade in place between Golden State, Phoenix, and Miami that would have returned Kevin Durant to Golden State. But Durant stepped up and made it known he did not want a reunion.”
"This was close to being Jimmy Butler in Phoenix and Kevin Durant in Golden State." 😯
—@WindhorstESPN on Jimmy Butler being traded to Golden State pic.twitter.com/wOXJcSuJBA
— Get Up (@GetUpESPN) February 6, 2025
In recent days, talks of the Warriors being interested in re-acquiring Durant picked up, but it seems that he didn’t want to go back to a chapter of his career that he had already closed the door on. Now he’ll remain in Phoenix with Devin Booker and Bradley Beal.
The Warriors had spoken in the weeks leading up to the trading deadline about how they didn’t feel the need to make a splashy move, but that all changed within the last few days as they pursued both Durant and Butler.
In the end, they got Butler, who helped lead the Heat to the NBA Finals twice but whose relationship with the Miami front office had rapidly deteriorated this season.
Jimmy Butler to the Warriors leaves everyone happy
Butler didn’t get his preferred destination of Phoenix, but he can find his basketball joy again now that he’s out of Miami. Receiving that two-year extension doesn’t hurt either, as that seemed to be his main sticking point with why he was unhappy with the Heat.
The Warriors gave up a lot to get Butler (Wiggins, Anderson, Schroder, Lindy Waters III, and a protected 2025 first-round pick), but now they have a star with something to prove, and they were still able to keep Jonathan Kuminga, Moses Moody, and Brandin Podziemski.
Pat Riley and the Heat have to be relieved to finally be rid of the Butler distraction, and they did manage to get pretty good value out of him when it was all said and done. In addition to Wiggins, Anderson, and the draft pick, they also reunited with P.J. Tucker, who came over from the Jazz. Miami got all of that for Butler and Josh Richardson, who went to Detroit along with Waters.
Will this trade make the Warriors contenders again, or will they be left wishing that Durant had signed off on the original deal?
This deadline has been the craziest one in history, and the rest of the season is going to make some teams feel very smart for what they were able to accomplish this week, and some teams very dumb. We’ll see which group the Warriors fall into.
