The Heat have been rebuilding around Tyler Herro and Bam Adebayo ever since Jimmy Butler was traded to the Warriors. But the direction in which that rebuild has been going so far is not very impressive to many experts around the NBA world.
The Heat recently traded Haywood Highsmith to the Nets for a 2026 second-round pick. This did not sit well with Draymond Green, who took a shot at ‘Internet experts’ who followed the Heat and felt that Highsmith should have started over Jimmy Butler during his final months with the Heat.
“Y’all (internet experts) wanted Jimmy to come off the bench behind dude, and 5 months later the Heat traded him for a bag of chips, that’s wild.”
Draymond Green even directly tagged Jimmy Butler on his Instagram story about this trade, where Butler even responded, saying he wants nothing to do with this.
Haywood Highsmith and Jimmy Butler play in the same position, but Highsmith is a much better shooter from range than Butler. This prompted fans and media experts to think that if Butler did not want to stay in Miami, he was welcome to leave because they had Highsmith to replace him.
Jimmy Butler played 55 games last season, where he averaged 17.5 points, 5.4 rebounds, and 5.4 assists while shooting 50.4% from the field and 30.2% from beyond the arc.
Meanwhile, Highsmith averaged 6.5 points, 3.4 rebounds, and 1.5 assists in 74 games played last season. He started 42 games and averaged 45.8% from the field and 38.2% from range. Therefore, the fans believed that if Highsmith had a lot more playing time, he could replace Butler, but alas, that wasn’t true.
The Miami Heat ended up being forced to trade Highsmith to avoid the luxury tax. The trade brings the Heat under the luxury-tax threshold. By shedding Highsmith’s expiring $5.6 million salary, the Heat goes from about $1.6 million above to about $4 million under the luxury-tax threshold.
Earlier this summer, the Heat were preparing moves for the likes of Kevin Durant and potentially even LeBron James. Having missed out on both, the Heat are now looking to free up some salary cap space to fit the remaining two players on their roster for the upcoming season (Currently have 13 of 15 on the roster).
They are currently approximately $9.6 million below the first-apron, which they want to avoid ideally. Therefore, they may have to bring players who are willing to accept a veteran minimum contract to play on the team.
It will be interesting to see how the Miami Heat pivot from plans to sign a superstar replacement for Butler to potentially running it back with a similar core, except for a few changes, like Norman Powell’s addition to the roster.
