The Jimmy Butler saga has been playing out in front of our eyes in shocking fashion. It wasn't that long ago he was "Himmy Butler" while carrying the Miami Heat to the kind of playoff success no one outside of their locker room could have predicted, including two trips to the NBA Finals.
Now, the Heat have suspended Butler for the second time in three weeks and it's not clear whether he will ever play another game in a Heat jersey.
So what does the Butler saga mean for your fantasy basketball team? Let's take a closer look at all the moving parts and potential scenarios.
How fantasy managers should anticipate a Butler trade
Butler is the most traded player in fantasy hoops over the past 30 days, ahead of Anthony Edwards, Donovan Mitchell, Jaylen Brown and DeMar DeRozan. The anticipation is that Butler will eventually be traded from the Heat to a new situation, where he might return to his more typical levels.
Bobby Marks and Kevin Pelton wrote a detailed breakdown of the potential trade market for Butler, featuring trades that could work with eight different teams -- Phoenix, Dallas, Golden State, Houston, Memphis, Milwaukee, Denver and San Antonio.
Best-case scenario
From a fantasy perspective, the best of the article's eight trade destinations for Butler would be the Warriors.
One trade that works:
Warriors get: Jimmy Butler
Heat get: Kyle Anderson, Gary Payton II, Andrew Wiggins, 2025 Warriors first-round pick (top-four protected), 2028 Warriors first-round pick
Pistons get: Kevon Looney, 2026 Lakers second-round pick (via Heat)
In the proposed deal, the Warriors' new starting lineup would likely be Stephen Curry, Butler, Draymond Green, Trayce Jackson-Davis with either Buddy Hield or Dennis Schroder at shooting guard. Hield would be the best fit, since Butler's playmaking skills would be in lieu of Wiggins' finishing touch, which would make Hield's shooting of more value to the team than Schroder's secondary floor-general skills.
The Warriors have had trouble creating consistent offense this season, particularly when opposing defenses either take Curry out of the game or make him into a one-dimensional shooter off the dribble. Draymond Green has long been the primary distributor for the Warriors, but without a secondary scoring threat equal to Klay Thompson, opposing defenses have effectively thrown the book at Curry and dared Draymond to create his own looks.
Butler would feast against the unbalanced defenses created by Curry's distortion, able to create both his own shot and shots for teammates off the dribble. With Jackson-Davis and Green cast primarily as role players, Hield as the floor-spacer and Curry as the defensive focal point, there would be enough shots in that lineup for Butler to replicate even his maximum usage season in Miami, the 2022-23 campaign where he averaged a well-rounded 23 points, 6 rebounds and 5-plus assists with excellent shooting percentages and steals.
Worst-case scenario
Nothing would be worse from a fantasy perspective than if the Heat decide to not trade Butler. Marks and Pelton break down that likely scenario, analogizing it to the Clippers choosing to let Paul George walk in free agency last summer as opposed to trading him away.
This freed up cap space that allowed the Clippers to sign several key players this season while building in more financial flexibility moving forward, and it would do the same for the Heat. Unfortunately, it would also likely be a death knell to Butler's fantasy season because all the buzz out of Miami suggests the Heat are ready to move on without their former star.
Even if Butler is traded, most of the trade destinations suggested in the article would:
(A) be good for Butler the player because the team is a contender.
(B) be terrible for Butler the fantasy producer because the contenders already have plenty of offensive options.
The most talked about trade destination has been the Phoenix Suns. But even if they traded Bradley Beal away in the deal, Butler would still be the third option behind high-volume scorer/playmakers Kevin Durant and Devin Booker. It's a similar story with the Mavericks (behind Luka Doncic and Kyrie Irving), Bucks (behind Giannis Antetokounmpo and Damian Lillard), Grizzlies (behind Ja Morant and sharing with Desmond Bane and Jaren Jackson Jr.) and Nuggets (behind Nikola Jokic, full stop, plus Jamal Murray and now Russell Westbrook).
Marks and Pelton also mention a few young up-and-coming teams as a possible landing spot, including the Rockets and the Spurs. Both of those teams are building a culture around young stars and young rosters, and it's hard to see them bringing in Butler to be a primary option. I could see them bringing him in to help teach the young players how to win, but that also comes with reduced fewer opportunities to post fantasy numbers.
For any of these scenarios, it is hard to see Butler averaging much more per game than he has averaged in Miami this season ... which is a far cry from our expectations entering the season.
What to do if you have Butler rostered
Make the best, quickest trade you can to send Butler to someone else's team. Most all of the likely scenarios result in either reduced (trade to most contenders) or non-existent (if he stays in Miami) numbers for Butler in the second half of the season.
Even in the Golden State scenario, one of the few in which Butler might fit and have the opportunity to produce, you still have to deal with Butler missing time; he's missed at least 18 games in every season since 2016-17. Butler steps up to "Himmy" in the playoffs, but that is after the fantasy hoops season is over.
I'm not advising you to trade Butler for nothing; he's the single-most traded player in ESPN leagues right now, so many people are trading for him. If he's on your roster, really talk up the potential upside of a potential trade. Or, you could wait until a trade happens and hope he has a big game early on while the excitement is still fresh, and trade him then.
Or, maybe look for another team with a lottery-ticket superstar and see if you can use Butler in a trade for them. I'm thinking as part of deals for players like Joel Embiid or Kawhi Leonard, about whom managers may be even bleaker, but who have higher upside than Butler if and when they do step on the court.
What to do if you don't have Butler
For those of you that don't have Butler on your team, he actually could be worth trading for if you have a very strong team and can afford to take a risk or have a struggling team that needs to shoot for the moon to try to get back in it.
If you deal for Butler, know you're taking a huge chance. Try to convince the other manager that Butler is a risk you're willing to take but that he shouldn't have to, and trade for him on the cheap.