Heat to suspend Jimmy Butler for two more games

The Heat will suspend Jimmy Butler for their upcoming two-game road trip, according to Shams Charania of The Athletic (Twitter link).

Charania reports that Butler missed a team flight on Wednesday for tomorrow’s game in Milwaukee. He planned to fly out separately and join his teammates tonight, but Heat officials told him to stay home. The suspension will also cover Saturday’s game in Brooklyn.

Butler just returned Friday from a seven-game suspension imposed before the start of the final road trip. He appeared in three games, all at home, and received a mixed reaction from Miami fans.

The latest suspension comes as the Heat try to find a trade to get Butler off their roster and avoid further escalating an already tense situation. He has asked to be traded for several weeks and reportedly “tripled down” on that request during recent meetings with the president of basketball operations Pat Riley and team owner Mickey Arison.

The Suns appear to be the front-runners to acquire Butler, and their prospects may have improved after they acquired three tradeable first-round picks in a deal with Utah on Tuesday. But at least one more team needs to be involved for Butler to end up in Phoenix, so it may take time to work out the details.

The first suspension cost Butler about $2.35 million in lost wages, though the players’ association disputes that. The latest suspension will add more than $671K to that number.