MIAMI – Some followers cheered him. Some booed him.
Jimmy Butler waved to all of them as his return game in Miami was getting underway.
The Heat paid tribute to Butler’s 5½ seasons with the group with a pregame video on Tuesday evening, proven in the area as a part of the introduction of the Golden State Warriors’ beginning lineup for the game.
Butler appeared to look at the roughly 40-second video, as he mentioned he would, although added that it didn’t matter to him whether or not the Heat did one or not. He obtained the full-throated introduction from Heat public-address announcer Michael Baiamonte — “Jim … my … Butlerrrrr” — simply as he did when he performed for Miami and waved to acknowledge the sounds from the stands.
He’s insisting that there’s no onerous emotions now, a month and a half after he was traded to the Warriors following a contentious breakup that noticed him suspended by Miami thrice in his closing weeks with the group.
The video included a slew of Butler’s highlights from the Heat period, together with the iconic picture of him, exhausted, slumped over a courtside barrier throughout a game in the NBA bubble in 2020.
“There’s a lot of change in the NBA,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said before the game. “But I think we’re pretty far removed now from that kind of emotion.”
Butler wasn’t blissful with the Heat over not getting an extension and had points with his position in the closing weeks of his time there. The Heat weren’t blissful with how he missed about 25% of their video games throughout his tenure with the membership and how he took his complaints public in the closing months.
Butler obtained his extension — two years, $111 million — from the Warriors, and Golden State was 16-3 in his first 19 appearances with the group getting into Tuesday.
“I’m always painted as the bad guy,” Butler mentioned. “Everywhere I’ve been, I’ve always been a problem. We’ll take it. I don’t got nothing to say. I’m not mad at being a bad guy. It’s all the way everything’s portrayed. Some people talk to the media, some people don’t. I’ve never been one to tell my side of the story to almost anybody. Let everybody think that this is what happened. We’ll ride with it.”
Fans, as they are usually when a prime participant leaves their group, haven’t been shy about hiding their anger with Butler on social media. Butler is aware of issues didn’t finish effectively in his Miami tenure, although notes that he believes there’s greater than sufficient blame to go round for the messy breakup.
“I wonder if they look at the Heat the same way,” Butler mentioned. “It ain’t like I was the one who was doing everything. It’s got to be 50-50, maybe 51-49 — 49 towards them, 51 towards me. But there’s no way that I was the cause of all of this.”
Butler wound up being suspended for a complete of 14 Heat video games earlier than the commerce. But the Heat have a convention of welcoming again gamers who have been All-Stars or champions with the group; Butler was an All-Star in Miami who led the group to a few Eastern Conference finals berths and two journeys to the NBA Finals.
He was booed when he touched the ball after the game began, although there have been some cheers when he scored Golden State’s first basket of the contest.
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