In a chat with the media ahead of Thursday’s game in Milwaukee, Heat coach Erik Spoelstra explained the mindset for his team amid the ongoing Jimmy Butler saga. Despite how dire the situation has become, Spoelstra wants his team to shrug it off and focus on the bigger mission.
“The point that I made to our team is you get used to it,” Spoelstra said, via Sun Sentinel. “Get over it. This is the NBA life. This is the life we chose. If you think that it’s just going to be predictable, you’re mistaken. I think it takes mental fortitude and commitment just to focus on the task at hand. Nothing changes, in terms of what the task is. We have a game tonight. We have enough continuity. We know what our identity is at this point. You can make any excuse you want to. But we get to do what we love.”
For young guard Tyler Herro, he admits that it doesn’t feel good to be caught in the middle of an ongoing feud but the best he can do is keep his head down and stick to his role.
“I think we all know everything that’s going on, so there’s not that much to talk about,” Herro said. “I mean what do you think? It’s probably not the easiest to work with someone who’s in and out, you know, in any job. So, we love Jimmy. We love for him to be here. And I love Jimmy.”
Star big man Bam Adebayo expressed similar feelings as his teammates and, like Spoelstra, wants to keep the team’s focus on winning rather than any drama happening behind the scenes.
“I mean, we keep the main thing the main thing,” Adebayo said. “Like we’ve said before, that’s between him and the management. And we let that be that. The rest of us, we’re worried about how we can get wins.”
Heat star Jimmy Butler has been a source of major disruption for his team and his very presence threatens to destabilize their season. It all began last summer after losing in the playoffs. Butler lashed out after not getting the kind of treatment he felt he deserved and it started a chain of reactions until he was eventually suspended from team activities.
In the latest turn of events, Butler was suspended again for two games after a failure to make the team flight. By all accounts, the relationship is beyond repair between Butler and the Heat and the scene has become borderline toxic in the locker room.
The Heat are trying their best to navigate through all the noise but it’s been difficult to play their best with so much resentment between their people. At 21-21 this season, the Heat are 9th in the standings and they still have a chance to contend for a top 6 seed.
With Butler or without him, they will fight on to prove they belong and try to cement their place as a contender in the East. As the new star of the show, the burden of leadership falls on Bam Adebayo now but it remains to be seen if he has what it takes to keep the Heat back to the depths of the NBA playoffs.
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