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As the Miami Heat face the Utah Jazz on Saturday night, the talk around the organization has been around Jimmy Butler and the recent developments involving trade talks and his seven-game suspension. The Heat's captain Bam Adebayo spoke at Saturday's shootaround about a number of topics centered around his teammate in Butler.
Adebayo and Butler have been teammates for the past five seasons where they have been to two NBA Finals as the 27-year-old said that it's “disappointing” to see the franchise and Butler go at it. However, his focus at the moment is on how himself and the team can win games according to Anthony Chiang of The Miami Herald.
“It’s disappointing when you see the organization and a player going head to head like that,” Adebayo said. “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.”
“Have everybody understand that this is the NBA, this is a part of your career,” Adebayo said of his message to the team. “You got to go through ups and downs, you got to figure stuff out and you got to do that while being locked in 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.”
Heat's Bam Adebayo on the thought of Jimmy Butler being traded
The situation has amplified after the Heat's loss to the Indiana Pacers on Thursday where Butler said after the game that he lost his “joy” of playing basketball and responded “Probably not” when asked if he can regain that in Miami. ESPN would report later that Butler requested a trade out of Miami as the Heat suspended the star a day later for “conduct detrimental” to the team.
On the topic of a potential trade, Adebayo would focus more so on what he and the team can “control” as a deal would be up to management such as Heat President Pat Riley.
“You live with what happens,” Adebayo 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.”
Heat's Nikola Jovic, Terry Rozier on situation with Jimmy Butler
Other players who spoke at Saturday's shootaround were stars Nikola Jovic and Terry Rozier, two have built chemistry with Butler since they have each been with Miami. Jovic would be optimistic in the situation and said that “everything will be good on both ends” while Rozier would admit it “sucks” to see what has transpired, though the focus is to win games.
“It’s just weird,” Jovic said. “Of course, it’s the business of basketball. He’s trying to find his joy back, we’re trying 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.”
“It’s tough because that’s one of your locker room guys, that’s one of your teammates,” Rozier said. “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.”
At any rate, the Heat are 17-15 which puts them sixth in the Eastern Conference before their game Saturday against the Jazz.
