The Miami Heat’s annual gala is one of the hottest tickets in the city. The exclusive event is hosted by the families of team president Pat Riley and owner Micky Arison to raise money for the team’s charitable fund. South Beach celebrities pull up in lime green Lamborghinis and lowriding McLarens and walk the red carpet before heading inside for the event held on the Kaseya Center court, where tycoons sip cocktails and hobnob with Riley and the Heat players.
It’s always a scene, and this year it doubled as the ritzy backdrop to the start of a new era for the organization. Just hours after arriving at the Heat’s facility for the first time, Andrew Wiggins, Kyle Anderson, and Davion Mitchell walked the red carpet into the gala, where they met Riley, head coach Erik Spoelstra, and their new teammates.
Wearing a gray suit slick enough for a spot in Riley’s closet, Bam Adebayo walked up to Mitchell and told him, “We’re ready to work.” Riley claims he was on the dance floor for three hours. Perhaps the weight of a dramatic NBA trade deadline had been lifted. Meanwhile, the newcomers spent most of their time soaking in their new digs. After leaving the gala at 10 p.m. Saturday night, everyone was back at the facility less than 11 hours later for an introductory press conference Sunday morning.
“I just want to welcome Kyle, Wiggs, and Davion to the Heat,” Riley said. “They are now officially part of what we do believe in, which is our culture here with the Heat. And we believe they are perfect players to be part of that. I think they’ll show it.”
Around the Heat, the word “culture” is a loaded one. Everything Riley has built since arriving in 1995, and everything the franchise has accomplished since then, boils down to that word. Now, it’s coming up even more than usual. There’s a reason for that.
Just three days before the gala, Riley and Heat brass traded Jimmy Butler to the Golden State Warriors, putting an end to a brutal months-long drama and turning the page on one of the franchise’s great chapters that was punctuated by the kind of off-the-court frenzy this team loathes.
A quick recap: Word got out in December that Butler, looking for a contract extension that the Heat refused to offer, would be open to playing elsewhere. The day after Christmas, Riley issued a statement, in response to trade speculation, that the Heat would not be dealing their franchise player. On January 2, Butler used a postgame press conference to express that he could not find joy in a Heat uniform. Eight days after Riley’s first statement, the Heat announced that they would listen to offers for Butler. When no trade materialized, Butler acted out, leading to three different suspensions, including a final, indefinite banishment.
The saga threatened to derail Miami’s season, but Riley believes last week’s trade can save it. The Heat acquired Wiggins, Anderson, Mitchell, and a 2025 first-round pick in a deal before the deadline to help kick-start the next era.
The Heat, at 25-26 and seventh place in the East, should be a playoff team this season, but they are not a title contender. They don’t rebuild. They revamp. As Riley once famously said, there is winning, and there is misery. Misery is a good word to describe the mood around the Heat the last few weeks as Butler’s trade demand became a distraction.
The standoff is over, but the work is just beginning. Work to restore the culture and revive championship hopes. The Heat are rarely down for long, but for Riley, who will turn 80 in March, this might be his toughest test yet.
On the red carpet, Riley and his wife, Chris, are briefly made available to reporters and TV cameras. Questions are typically limited to those about the gala, but Riley is a basketball man. Asked about the respite a February party can provide in the middle of a long season, Riley turned his attention back to the court.
“As we always say,” Riley told The Ringer, “make sure the main thing is the main thing, which is hoops.”
That is just one of many taglines that serve as a pillar of the team’s mission, but there’s a sense around the league that the famous Heat Culture isn’t as strong as it used to be. Before the Heat can chase names on a whiteboard, they have to rebuild a foundation damaged by Butler’s scorched-earth approach to his trade demand. It’s fair to wonder whether the Heat’s reputation took a hit after the ugly departure of a star player who was synonymous with their identity for half a decade.
After the trade, sources close to Butler told The Athletic that Riley’s behavior was “unhinged and disturbing” during a January meeting in which Riley met with Butler to try to repair their relationship. It’s a portrayal that, according to the Miami Herald, angered the Heat.
Clearly, the bridges are burnt. Less than six years ago, Riley and Butler embraced at an introductory press conference. Riley, from Schenectady, New York, and Butler, from Tomball, Texas, share complicated backstories and a resolve few can relate to. The two alphas seemed destined for each other. Perhaps they were also destined to eventually clash.
During Butler’s tenure, he was occasionally allowed to fly separately and arrange for different lodging accommodations when the team was on the road. The extent to which these things happened and details about a missed team flight that led to a suspension are murky, but they did happen. It was clear that Butler was given special treatment during his time in Miami.
Butler chafed when the Heat tried to curtail that special treatment this season. He walked out of a January practice when Spoelstra announced that Butler was going to be coming off the bench after his second suspension and bristled at the team’s decision to diminish his role in the offense.
The Heat did so because Butler could no longer be counted on to produce like a star player for the entire season. Butler, 35, had missed an average of 22 games in each of the previous three seasons. His level of engagement on the court waxed and waned last season, and he missed the playoffs after sustaining a knee injury during the play-in tournament. It led Riley in his annual end-of-season press conference to openly challenge Butler to be more available before discussing a contract extension.
“That’s a big decision on our part to commit those kinds of resources unless you have somebody who’s going to be there and available every single night,” Riley said.
Butler’s reputation off the court is established at this point. He’s stubborn and can be difficult to work with, but it was worth it when he was also leading the Heat on deep playoff runs. The relationship between the Heat and Butler came to a head when he began to embarrass them on the court. In the three games he played in between suspensions, he averaged 10.3 shot attempts and spent most of his minutes jogging back on defense and standing in the corner.
For an organization that painted its mission statement (hardest working, best conditioned, most professional, etc.) on the court, having a star player who no longer embodied those core values was untenable.
Franchise legend Dwyane Wade wondered on his podcast what had happened to the Heat’s culture and Riley’s “iron fist.” Riley himself remarked during last spring’s press conference that the Heat needed to tighten the screws.
The work doesn’t fall on Riley alone. Spoelstra has as much to do with the team’s culture as the Godfather these days. It also falls on the team’s captain, Adebayo. Newly minted All-Star Tyler Herro is seen as a locker-room leader. As is veteran Kevin Love, whose self-appointed duties range from comic relief on Instagram to explaining the details of the CBA to his teammates ahead of the trade deadline.
For nearly three weeks before the trade deadline, Spoelstra didn’t publicly speak Butler’s name or answer questions about Butler’s trade demand and suspensions.
“I know what story lines you’re looking for. I’m not feeding into any of that,” Spoelstra responded after a reporter asked a veiled question about Butler.
But make no mistake, despite Spoelstra’s posturing, the Heat’s locker room was affected by Butler’s desire to be traded. Butler’s stance was an open secret among players long before he publicly issued his request on January 2. When he wasn’t serving a suspension, comments he made about knowing who dapped him up before the game (and who didn’t) were met with eye rolls by teammates at nearby lockers. Despite the drama, some held out hope that their longtime teammate wouldn’t get traded. Others seemed ready for him to get his way.
“It was definitely a hectic stretch of time. A lot of uncertainty,” Duncan Robinson told me at the gala. “It’s good to know this is the group we have, and this is how we’re moving forward.”
On the court, the Heat’s usual attention to detail has been missing. They’ve hovered around .500 for most of the season and have blown 12 double-digit leads, second behind only the tanking Utah Jazz.
“We’re inconsistent game-to-game, possession-to-possession,” Spoelstra said after his team let a fourth-quarter lead slip away in Brooklyn.
“It’s small stuff,” Adebayo added. “Missing block-outs, miscommunications, not knowing what coverage we’re in on defense. It’s those little things that great teams do.”
It’s those little things that the Heat used to do so well.
The subtraction of the league’s biggest distraction and the additions of Wiggins, Mitchell, and Anderson should help.
Wiggins played in at least 70 games in three of the past four seasons, with the only exception being the 2022-23 season when he was excused from the Warriors for personal reasons. The Heat targeted him in a Butler deal because of his championship experience, low-maintenance demeanor, and versatility.
The Heat had been fans of Mitchell dating back to when he was taken ninth in the 2021 draft. The front office leaped at the chance to acquire him before the deadline. “His toughness, competitive spirit, is something we admire,” Spoelstra said. “It fits in how we want to play.” Anderson is a high-IQ role player who will fill in the gaps.
“Super happy to have the new guys, get past everything going on,” Herro said. “It’s kind of refreshing. It’s good to get new energy, new life into the building.”
The new additions, including Wiggins, who will wear Butler’s old no. 22, will be part of Miami’s core going forward. The Heat valued their character as much as their talent when negotiating Butler’s trade.
Still, in the hours before the trade deadline, the Heat debated whether to make a bigger splash and trade Butler to the Phoenix Suns for Kevin Durant. Even though Durant turned down a chance to return to Golden State, sources told ESPN’s Ramona Shelburne and Brian Windhorst that he would have been open to playing in Miami. The Heat, though, felt the Suns were asking for too much and the two sides never got close to a deal, according to multiple reports.
The Heat could revisit a trade for Durant this summer, when he’ll have one year left on his contract and plenty of leverage if he decides, as some expect he might, to request a trade.
Riley has chased Durant for years. In 2016, Riley and the Heat pitched Durant in the Hamptons before the Warriors closed the deal. They tried again when Durant left Golden State in 2019, and again in 2023 when Durant requested a trade from Brooklyn. Four times the Heat have tried and failed. In some ways, Durant remains Riley’s white whale.
Could a fifth time be the charm? Could Riley, at 80 years old—in need of an elite win-now scorer next to Adebayo and Herro—and Durant, at 36—perhaps craving stability and a winning culture—help solve each other’s problems?
As always, there will be competition for Durant’s services. The Timberwolves reportedly tried to trade for Durant before the deadline. Other teams will emerge. The Heat will have up to three tradable first-round picks, young players, and contracts to include in a deal this summer. They also hope that they will have rebuilt the foundation to attract a star, Durant or otherwise.
What’s clear after this past trade deadline is that nothing can be ruled out. Does Giannis Antetokounmpo decide to move on from Milwaukee? Would Anthony Edwards one day choose to explore somewhere outside of Minnesota?
Five years passed between LeBron James’s departure from Miami and Butler’s arrival. There’s not an appetite to wait that long again. For someone like Riley, there isn’t much use in waiting around for an unprotected pick to convey in 2031. A winner of nine championships across five decades as a player, coach, and executive, Riley aims to make it 10 in six.
If any team can turn from one contending era to the next in no time, it’s the Heat. Few teams in need of a star player can offer the same infrastructure and track record.
But as the Heat have learned, no organization’s culture is as strong as a star player’s wishes. Like it or not, NBA teams move in response to the league’s most powerful players.
Riley and the Heat can build everything back up in their ideal vision, but it’ll be a star player who will ultimately decide whether they become a contender again.