MIAMI — You start here: Jimmy Butler was one of the most significant players in the Miami Heat’s 37 seasons, and if not deserving of a spot on the team’s Mount Rushmore, then at least due — when cooler heads eventually prevail, even as the number already has been passed along to Andrew Wiggins — consideration to have his No. 22 in the Kaseya Center rafters.

Two trips to the NBA Finals, three to the Eastern Conference finals, two All-Star berths, three All-NBA nods of varying levels and one second-team All-Defensive selection in 5 1/2 seasons is an undeniable resume.

Jimmy Butler as a player when playing at the top of his game? Fierce, frightening, formidable.

But there also is the other side, the side when he just can’t help himself, when the concept of self overwhelms the concept of team, when me-against-the-world goes from something laudable to something lamentable.

There is a reason he does not last long in one place, the Golden State Warriors now the fifth stop in a 14-year career.

At times, an overwhelming presence on the court.

Almost always, an overwhelming presence off the court.

And, no, this is not the small stuff that gets overblown and got overblown over these past two months of contretemps with the Heat that led to his trade to the Warriors.

Elite players arrange their own ground transportation all the time. Elite players frequently set up their own accommodations on the road. And, no, the Heat plane two weeks ago did not sit on the tarmac for two hours waiting for Butler before the second of his three Heat suspensions. That one? Not true.

But he wore on teammates, coaches and the support staff that was not his own support staff.

At one point, when a teammate had a moment even worse than most of Butler’s off-the-court moments, Butler quipped to a confidant of said player, “I may be a jerk, but he’s an a------.”

Still, when considering where Butler came from, homeless in his teens after being kicked out of his house by his mother, estranged for years from his father, empathy and grace were appropriate. And his teammates largely afforded as much.

Still, it was not easy, even during the best of times, with Butler diminishing of some, dismissive of others.

A moment in the locker room a season ago in Cleveland crystalized some of that.

It was the victory the night before Thanksgiving, the game when Dru Smith shredded his knee with a misstep off the court ledge at Rocket Mortgage Fieldhouse, when the Heat, even in the absence of sidelined Bam Adebayo, found their way to a 129-96 victory, on a night Butler was limited to 10 points on 3-of-12 shooting.

In the postgame locker room, Butler’s personal music was so loud, microphones practically had to be shoved down Kyle Lowry’s tonsils on a night Lowry scored 28.

And then came the interview turn of center Orlando Robinson, a journeyman player in every sense, who, on this night, with Adebayo out, went for 14 points and nine rebounds and earned a postgame interview of his own on the team’s broadcast.

As Robinson spoke, or tried to speak, Butler shouted from across the locker room to Robinson that Robinson didn’t have to talk, wasn’t required to do the interview. Understand, there have not been many of these moments in Robinson’s career.

That’s when Butler was asked by a media member about the need to interrupt the interview, to prevent interviewer and teammate from such a benign moment.

As was typical when overstepping, Butler walked it back, said no ill intent.

And there wasn’t.

But over a course of a season, such me-moments can wear on a locker room, on teammates, on those there to support.

Again, a small part of a bigger picture. As one Heat official said during the recent back-and-forth, plenty of teams win without absolute harmony, including plenty of Heat teams in the past, including a Heat championship team.

But when you’re not winning, it becomes amplified and can torpedo a season, as Butler seemingly tried with this one.

And when a player who doesn’t always come to play is the one amplifying, it can become intolerable.

A passive parting obviously would have been the better way. But little about Jimmy Butler is passive, unless passively aggressive.

As a player, it has served him well. Arguably financially also well, considering the Warriors were waiting with the extension that Heat President Pat Riley had denied, or at least held in abeyance.

If Jimmy Butler’s goal was to make sure there never was a Heat player like him, he more than succeeded.

With his departure, it’s as if the Heat next want to make sure there won’t be another Heat player like him.

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