Jimmy Butler returns from suspension and will play Friday against the Nuggets

On By Littum

Jimmy Butler’s relationship with the Heat has soured since his trade request and subsequent suspension.

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MIAMI (AP) — Jimmy Butler returned to the Miami Heat as scheduled on Friday, going through the team’s walkthrough ahead of their game against the Denver Nuggets (8 ET, League Pass).

Butler missed Miami’s final seven games while serving a suspension for conduct the team deemed harmful. The team is trying to trade Butler, saying the six-time All-Star has asked to be moved elsewhere.

But he remains in Miami for now and was in the lineup Friday night.

“As for silly questions like ‘What’s the temperature in the room?’ or ‘How’s everybody?’, it just sounds so dramatic,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said. “We’re professionals. We are fine. Ready for tonight’s game. That is the only thing that matters.”

Butler’s agent, Bernie Lee, posted a letter on social media Friday with a very brief message from Butler. “I’m back,” it read, replicating how Michael Jordan’s agent, David Falk, announced — in a fax — how Jordan ended his retirement in March 1995 and returned to the Chicago Bulls.

There have been attempts at humor throughout this process, including Heat forward Kevin Love stirring things up on Instagram with various clips. But for the Heat, parts of this have been no laughing matter, especially since it’s still likely to end with Butler either leaving via trade sometime before the Feb. 6 deadline or this summer — possibly as a free agent.

The seven-game suspension will cost him about $2.3 million, though the National Basketball Players Association has said it will appeal. This appeal, if successful, could lessen the financial impact of the suspension or possibly eliminate it altogether.

“Look, we work in a league of complexity,” Spoelstra said before Friday’s game. “We’re in an unusual place right now, but really everything that it is is complex. And we fully plan to operate within that complexity. So it’s my job to prepare this team and get them ready to play at a high level. And that’s what I’m doing.”