MIAMI (AP) — For the 119th time since Jimmy Butler joined Miami, the Heat played a game without him.
This was different from the others.
And it went very — very — badly for Miami.
Butler is gone, banished by the Heat for seven games over what they called conduct detrimental to the team — and he's probably not going to play for Miami again. His suspension started Saturday night when the Heat played the Utah Jazz, and the team says it will agree to his wishes and try to facilitate a trade.
Game 1 of the Butler suspension was a disaster: The Jazz, who entered with a 7-25 record, took a 43-point lead and wound up winning 136-100. They outrebounded Miami 57-32, and it didn't seem that close.
“It’s disappointing when you see the organization and a player going head-to-head like that,” Heat captain Bam Adebayo said Saturday after the team's shootaround practice. “But the rest of us got to figure out how to win games.”
They did not have it figured out Saturday. Not even close.
They hadn't lost a game by more than 19 all season. They lost this game by 36, the sixth-biggest home loss in franchise history.
“I don’t think we make any excuses for this," Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said. "We just took it on the chin and we have to get to work.”
Butler has not commented publicly on the suspension. The National Basketball Players Association spoke out on Butler's behalf hours after the Heat announced the suspension on Friday, saying it believes the team's actions are “excessive and inappropriate.” The suspension could cost Butler about $2.4 million of his $48.8 million salary this season.
“It's none of our business,” Adebayo said. “It’s for Jimmy and for the management to handle.”
How it gets handled from here, and on what timeframe, is anyone's guess.
There was a new starting lineup with Butler gone: Miami opened the game with Terry Rozier, Tyler Herro, Haywood Highsmith, Nikola Jovic and Adebayo. Butler's locker is still the way he left it, shower shoes leaning against the drawer under the seat, a few items hanging on hooks and a few things taped to the wall. It will be cleaned out at some point, but he's still part of the team.
For now, anyway.
“We’re just going to focus on tonight," Spoelstra said before the game. "I want to quiet all the distractions. Enough has been said. We have clarity. We’re just going to focus on this group in the locker room. That’s what I want them to focus on and quiet the noise as much as possible. I’m not a clickbait type of coach, so you’re not going to get anything else really from me. We have a task to do.”
Utah will see Miami twice during Butler's suspension; the Heat play in Salt Lake City on Thursday. Jazz coach Will Hardy knows being without Butler won't change Spoelstra's approach.
“They have a consistency in their program from a competitive standpoint that you know that it doesn’t matter who plays," Hardy said. “You come here, you play Miami in your building, it’s going to be 48 minutes of highly competitive, physical basketball. Spo has shown that the entire time he’s been in Miami.”
Trading Butler will be a challenge in these NBA times, with the rules of the collective bargaining agreement limiting the ways teams can acquire players. It's possible, but it's far from certain. And the Heat simply letting Butler leave as a free agent this summer also remains a possibility — a move that would open up some other avenues for Miami to acquire new players before next season.
“It sucks to see that he won’t be around,” Rozier said.
Butler averaged 21.7 points, 6.2 rebounds and 5.7 assists in 380 games with the Heat, including playoffs. Entering Saturday, since Butler joined the Heat, they won 59.7% of their games when he played (227-153); they won 49.2% of their games when he didn’t (58-60).
He became eligible last summer for a two-year, $113 million extension. The deal was never offered by the Heat, in part because Butler has missed about one-quarter of the team's games during his Miami tenure.
It was only natural that such a big sum of money not being offered was going to lead to problems. And the tension boiled over this week. Butler didn't play in the fourth quarters of Miami games on Wednesday and Thursday; he spent some offensive possessions simply standing in the corner, almost as if he had no role.
“I feel like he came to work, he tried to perform, and it just didn’t go his way,” Adebayo said. “I feel like he didn’t want to be in the corner. But like I said, we developed a system where we play around everybody, and we just had to figure out how to incorporate him. But after what happened yesterday, we’re focused on who’s with us now.”
After the second of those games earlier in the week, Butler said “probably not” when asked if he thought he could find on-court joy again in Miami.
Saying those two words may have been his last official act as a member of the Heat. A week or so ago, Miami had no interest in trading Butler. Hearing him say that he doesn't want to be on the team anymore evidently changed things.
“It's hard to not see him around,” Jovic said.
AP NBA: https://apnews.com/hub/NBA
Miami Heat forward Jimmy Butler (22) and center Bam Adebayo, left, are introduced before an NBA basketball game against the Indiana Pacers Thursday, Jan. 2, 2025, in Miami. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky)
WASHINGTON (AP) — It's the largest prosecution in Justice Department history — with reams of evidence, harrowing videos and hundreds of convictions of the rioters who stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Now Donald Trump's return to power has thrown into question the future of the more than 1,500 federal cases brought over the last four years.
Jan. 6 trials, guilty pleas and sentencings have continued chugging along in Washington's federal court despite Trump's promise to pardon rioters, whom he has called “political prisoners" and “hostages” he contends were treated too harshly.
Here's a look at where the prosecutions stand on the fourth anniversary of the Capitol riot and what could happen next:
More than 1,500 people across the U.S. have been charged with federal crimes related to the deadly riot. Hundreds of people who did not engage in destruction or violence were charged only with misdemeanor offenses for entering the Capitol illegally. Others were charged with felony offenses, including assault for beating police officers. Leaders of the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys extremist groups were convicted of seditious conspiracy for what prosecutors described as plots to use violence to stop the peaceful transfer of power from Trump, a Republican, to Joe Biden, a Democrat.
About 250 people have been convicted of crimes by a judge or a jury after a trial. Only two people were acquitted of all charges by judges after bench trials. No jury has fully acquitted a Capitol riot defendant. At least 1,020 others had pleaded guilty as of Jan. 1.
More than 1,000 rioters have already been sentenced, with over 700 receiving at least some time behind bars. The rest were given some combination of probation, community service, home detention or fines.
The longest sentence, 22 years, went to former Proud Boys national chairman Enrique Tarrio, who was convicted of seditious conspiracy along with three lieutenants. A California man with a history of political violence got 20 years in prison for repeatedly attacking police with flagpoles and other makeshift weapons during the riot. And Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes is serving an 18-year prison sentence for seditious conspiracy and other offenses.
More than 100 Jan. 6 defendants are scheduled to stand trial in 2025, while at least 168 riot defendants are set to be sentenced this year.
Authorities have continued making new arrests since Trump's election victory. That includes people accused of assaulting police officers who were defending the Capitol.
Citing Trump's promise of pardons, several defendants have sought to have their cases delayed — with little success.
In denying one such request, U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth, who was nominated to the bench by President Ronald Reagan, a Republican, wrote: "This Court recently had the occasion to discuss what effect the speculative possibility of a presidential pardon has on the timetable for a pending criminal matter. In short: little to none."
One defendant who convinced a judge to postpone his trial, William Pope, told the court that the “American people gave President Trump a mandate to carry out the agenda he campaigned on, which includes ending the January 6 prosecutions and pardoning those who exercised First Amendment rights at the Capitol.” Pope has now asked the judge to allow him to travel to Washington to attend Trump's inauguration on Jan. 20.
Trump embraced the Jan. 6 rioters on the campaign trial, downplaying the violence that was broadcast on live TV and has been documented extensively through video, testimony and other evidence in the federal cases.
Trump has vowed to begin issuing pardons of Jan. 6 rioters on his first day in office. He has said he will look at individuals on a case-by-case basis, but he has not explained how he will decide who receives such relief.
He has said there may be “some exceptions" — if “somebody was radical, crazy." But he has not ruled out pardons for people convicted of serious crimes, like assaulting police officers. When confronted in a recent NBC News interview about the dozens of people who have pleaded guilty to assaulting law enforcement, Trump responded: “Because they had no choice."
Many judges in Washington's federal court have condemned the depiction of the rioters as “political prisoners," and some have raised alarm about the potential pardons.
"No matter what ultimately becomes of the Capital Riots cases already concluded and still pending, the true story of what happened on January 6, 2021 will never change," Judge Lamberth recently said in a statement when handing down a sentence.
U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols, who was nominated to the bench by Trump, has said it would be “beyond frustrating and disappointing” if Trump hands out mass pardons to rioters.
In another case, U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta alluded to the prospect of a pardon for Rhodes, the Oath Keepers founder convicted of seditious conspiracy.
“The notion that Stewart Rhodes could be absolved of his actions is frightening and ought to be frightening to anyone who cares about democracy in this country,” said Mehta, who was nominated by President Barack Obama, a Democrat.
Follow the AP's coverage of the Jan. 6 insurrection at https://apnews.com/hub/capitol-siege.
FILE - Violent protesters loyal to President Donald Trump, including Kevin Seefried, center, holding a Confederate battle flag, are confronted by U.S. Capitol Police officers outside the Senate Chamber inside the Capitol, Jan. 6, 2021 in Washington. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta, File)
FILE - Supporters of President Donald Trump climb the west wall of the the U.S. Capitol in Washington, Jan. 6, 2021. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana, File)
FILE - A flag hangs between broken windows after then-President Donald Trump supporters tried to break through police barriers outside the U.S. Capitol, Jan 6, 2021. (AP Photo/John Minchillo, File)
FILE - Insurrectionists loyal to President Donald Trump try to break through a police barrier, Wednesday, Jan. 6, 2021, at the Capitol in Washington. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez, File)
