The Jimmy Butler saga with the Miami Heat ended Wednesday night with the six-time All-Star set to join the Golden State Warriors as part of a four-team deal.
Sources told ESPN’s Shams Charania that Butler will head to the Warriors with the Heat acquiring Kyle Anderson, Andrew Wiggins, and Golden State’s protected 2025 first-round pick. Miami will also acquire P.J. Tucker from the Utah Jazz, who will get Dennis Schroder, while the Detroit Pistons will land Lindy Waters III and Josh Richardson.
The trade ends what had been season-long staredown between Butler and the Heat, and gives the Warriors another star to pair with Stephen Curry and Draymond Green in hopes of getting back into the Western Conference playoffs after missing out in 2024.
Let’s grade all sides of this deal and explore what some of the early winners and losers of this deal that could massive league-wide implications.
Did either the Warriors or Heat improve after Butler deal?
Golden State Warriors get:
F Jimmy Butler
Miami Heat get:
F Kyle Anderson
F P.J. Tucker
F Andrew Wiggins
Protected first-round pick
Detroit Pistons get:
G Lindy Waters III
G Josh Richardson
Utah Jazz get:
G Dennis Schroder
Note: Check back for grades for the Jazz and Pistons, plus winners and losers around the league.
Golden State Warriors: B-
The stakes for Butler in the Bay are simple: lift the Warriors out of a fierce battle just to make the play-in tournament and give Stephen Curry another playoff run while he’s still performing at an All-Star level.
With Kevin Durant reportedly uninterested in returning to Golden State, Butler was almost certainly the best player the Warriors could have realistically acquired. As I broke down last month, Butler’s statistical downturn this season — from 20.8 PPG to 17.0, his lowest average since 2013-14 — seems attributable more to motivation than declining skill at age 35.
At the same time, the fit surely isn’t as clean as Golden State would have preferred — or as clean as Durant’s return would have been. Butler doesn’t solve the Warriors’ biggest need for 3-point shooting besides Curry and reserve guard Buddy Hield. In fact, Golden State gave up the second-best shooter in its starting five. Andrew Wiggins has averaged 2.2 3s per game this season at a 38% clip. Butler hasn’t made more than a 3.0 per game since he was with the Minnesota Timberwolves and is down to just 0.5 this year.
With 19 hours to go before the deadline, the Warriors may have another move in them to add shooting. Golden State could offer a conditional first-round pick in either 2027 or 2028 pending resolution of the one traded in this deal, as well as first-round swaps plus the expiring contracts of Kevon Looney and Gary Payton II to pursue another upgrade.
For now, Butler can lift a Warriors defense that has been good but not championship-quality. Golden State is ninth in defensive rating after ranking fourth during the Warriors’ 12-3 start. Part of that was due to unsustainable opponent 3-point shooting — teams hit a league-low 31% against them over that span, and are at 38% since, second-highest — but Golden State has also forced turnovers at a below-average rate after starting the season in the top 10. Adding Butler, who led the league with 2.1 steals per game in 2020-21, should help the Warriors in that regard.
Butler will be Golden State’s latest attempt to find some offense with Curry on the bench. Over the course of the season, their offensive rating ranks in the seventh percentile league-wide without Curry, per Cleaning the Glass. Schroder wasn’t the solution. Lineups featuring him but not Curry were only marginally better, ranking in the 12th percentile.
As with any singular star player, it’s difficult for a Warriors offense built around Curry to shift its focus when he rests. Part of the issue, however, was simply not having enough ballhandling and shot creation. Schroder offered those capabilities, but his pick-and-roll game never seemed comfortable in coach Steve Kerr‘s motion-based offense and Schroder slumped badly as a shooter.
When all else fails, Butler can simply put his head down and get to the free throw line. This season’s 6.4 free throw attempts per game are Butler’s fewest since 2018-19 but they’re also more than any Golden State player (save Durant) has averaged since Corey Maggette in 2009-10, per Stathead.com.
If the Warriors can escape the West’s pack and make the playoffs, either by climbing in the top six or through the play-in tournament, “Playoff Jimmy” gives them a reasonable chance at pulling an upset or two.
Butler has been one of the NBA’s biggest playoff overachievers relative to his regular-season performance. So too are Curry and Draymond Green, and that trio will give Golden State an enormous experience advantage over any of the West’s top three seeds (the Oklahoma City Thunder, Houston Rockets and Memphis Grizzlies).
At this point, I’d compare the Warriors to the Lakers of the last two seasons. After loading up at the 2023 trade deadline, the Lakers rode a favorable playoff path — including a matchup with Golden State in the conference semifinals — to a conference finals appearance. A year later, a virtually identical Lakers group drew a more difficult first-round matchup against the defending champion Denver Nuggets and lost 4-1 in the first round.
Nothing the Warriors were going to realistically acquire at the deadline was going to turn them into serious championship contenders at this point. Curry hasn’t played at that level over extended stretches lately, and Golden State didn’t have enough to land a star player in their prime.
Keeping that in mind, I think the Warriors accomplished their stated goal of not doing anything desperate. Butler is unlikely to be worth the two-year, max extension he agreed to as part of this trade, and it’s possible that will create another round of drama in 2026-27 when Butler is angling for another contract. But Golden State managed to keep young prospects such as Jonathan Kuminga and Brandin Podziemski out of this trade, making this win-now move while also keeping one eye on the future.
Miami Heat: B+
Once the Heat were in a position where they had to trade Butler, this was a pretty good return. Miami accomplished its goal of avoiding taking back bad salary while also getting what could be a quality first-round pick to replenish its coffers.
After a down 2023-24, Wiggins has been back to the quality 3-and-D star he was for the Warriors during their 2022 championship run. Because Butler has played just 25 games this season, I rate Wiggins as having produced an almost identical 3.0 wins above replacement player by my WARP metric.
Wiggins is on a reasonable contract that pays him $26.3 million this season and $58 million combined over the next two — only a little more than Butler will make in 2025-26 alone. Wiggins’ deal does go beyond 2026, when the Heat reportedly hope to create cap space to build around their duo of Bam Adebayo and Tyler Herro, but I suspect Miami could move the final year of Wiggins’ contract without too much difficulty if that plan comes to fruition.
Anderson’s contract is less favorable, which explains reports Wednesday night that suggested he would be rerouted to the Toronto Raptors to get the Heat out of the luxury tax. If no deal materializes, Miami could still use Anderson’s playmaking ability. Anderson’s length would work well in the zone defenses Erik Spoelstra likes to use with second units.
The Heat did reroute Schroder to the Utah Jazz, bringing back P.J. Tucker. During his first stint in Miami, Tucker started 70 of 71 games and helped the Heat to the Eastern Conference finals. That was three seasons ago, however, and Tucker is now age 39 and nine months removed from his last NBA action after the LA Clippers told him to stay home pending a trade. We’ll see what his role might be.
Pending a possible Anderson trade, for now the Heat have reduced their tax bill by $24 million. They also landed a first-round pick that will convey if Golden State is outside the top 10 this year. Keeping the pick would take something of a Warriors collapse. Their pick would be part of a three-way tie for 16th if the season ended today.
Most likely, Miami will get a first-rounder in the same range as the Heat’s two recent first-round picks: Kel’el Ware (15) and Jaime Jaquez Jr. (18). That’s helpful because Miami’s 2025 pick goes to Oklahoma City if it lands outside the lottery. In the unlikely event the Heat don’t get the pick now, they negotiated more favorable terms than Golden State usually offers, with top-10 protection again in 2026 before becoming fully unprotected in 2027.
It’s clear this Miami team has less upside than it would have with a motivated Butler. Given the Heat’s desire to protect their 2026 cap space and Butler’s urgency to sign an extension, that wasn’t in the cards. Getting a quality starter on a good contract and a worthwhile first-round pick is a reasonable save.
Source: espn.com