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Pat Riley says the Heat improved after trading Jimmy Butler.

Miami Heat president Pat Riley said that his team improved this year after they traded Jimmy Butler to the Golden State Warriors last season.

At the 2025 NBA trade deadline, the Heat dealt Butler to the Warriors as part of a five-team deal that saw Miami land Andrew Wiggins, Davion Mitchell, Kyle Anderson, and a first-round pick. After 5.5 years in Miami, including leading the team to two NBA finals, it was a tough decision to trade Butler away, but the relationship between the player and team broke down, necessitating a divorce between the two parties.

Ultimately, Butler went to Golden State and led them to a first-round playoff series win over the Houston Rockets, before falling to the Minnesota Timberwolves. The Warriors then missed the playoffs this year, with Butler getting injured and missing half the season. As for the Heat, they lost to the Cleveland Cavaliers in last year’s first round before missing the playoffs this year.

When speaking to the media on Monday in Miami, Riley spoke about the Butler trade and said that he felt the Heat actually improved as a team because of it, pointing out they won more games this season (43) than last year with Butler (37), even though the team missed the playoffs.

“Over the last 10 years, we’ve had one 50-win season. We won 48, we won 46, 44, whatever it is. When you look back at what we did with Jimmy and that trade, winning 37 games last year for a lot of reasons, and then winning six more games this year, that’s an improvement. You have to look at the little things, even though it’s not good enough for a lot of people. So we did improve from that standpoint, ” Riley said.

Heat Could Make Big Move This Offseason

The Heat could make a big move this offseason, with a trade for Milwaukee Bucks superstar Giannis Antetokounmpo among the bigger-name players who have been linked to the Heat. The Heat have a surplus of draft picks, prospects, and young players who they could add together in a trade package, plus several high-priced veterans they can put in the deal for salary-cap matching purposes. Team captain Bam Adebayo, however, is off limits in any trade, according to Riley.

Jimmy Butler Will be Back Next Season for the Warriors

Butler tore his right ACL for the Warriors in January 2026, and he is expected to miss the rest of this year before he can return to competition, perhaps in early 2027 for the Warriors. There have been some rumblings that the Warriors may consider packaging Butler in a trade as a salary-matching piece if they are going to acquire a big-name superstar of their own, such as the aforementioned Antetokounmpo. But Butler was a good fit with the Warriors when healthy, so they may try to keep him on their roster next year and see if they can run it back with veterans Stephen Curry and Draymond Green, another vet who could potentially be on the move depending on how this offseason shakes out for the team.