Miami Heat star Jimmy Butler has found his name in trade rumors across the last few days and on Wednesday, Shams Charania reported that the Phoenix Suns are a team he'd be interested in joining, according to league circles in contact with Butler's agent, Bernie Lee.
Well, shortly after that report came out, Lee, who previously called out Shams back in 2021 for a false report, went scorched earth on X.
Take a look:
“Alright listen. I gave you a pass yesterday because I was busy but if you don’t stop putting my name on your complete and utter made up bullshit because you know you normally arent worth my time to acknowledge.. (continued).
I don’t know what I’m going to do because I’m a middle aged dad but just know it would indicate severe dislike. World… all this is fabricated. I have never and honestly it wouldn’t help me or the position I represent to do anything that’s been reported by said “journalist”.
Shams this is your opportunity to say my bad “I let chat GPT write my tweets and it went old school Peter Vescey..” (Shams Peter was a writer in the 90’s) be a trend setter.. invent the new I was hacked. Carry on all. Thank you.”
Absolutely ruthless from Lee. Three years ago, he destroyed Shams for claiming there was tension between Butler and the Heat roster/coaching staff. It's pretty clear that Lee is not a fan of Charania, who was recently hired by ESPN to take over Adrian Wojnarowski's role.
For what it's worth, the trade buzz doesn't seem to have much traction. Butler was asked about it himself on Wednesday and essentially shrugged off the rumors, instead seeing it as a good thing for business on the court. Via The Miami Herald:
“I actually like it,” Butler said. “It’s good to be talked about. I don’t think there’s such a thing as bad publicity to a point. But if somebody is talking about me getting traded, that’s a lot.”
“It’s fine with me,” Butler continued on the trade speculation. “It doesn’t bother me one bit and I do appreciate it. I appreciate going out there and hooping and I appreciate being efficient, being effective and helping my team win. I don’t ever take playing basketball for anybody for granted.”
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Heat head coach Erik Spoelstra also called the the trade rumors “gibberish” on Tuesday. While Jimmy has yet to sign an extension, he also said it's not a priority at the moment. The focus is this season and getting his team back to the playoffs:
“Not really,” Butler said. “My kids matter, my happiness matters, my well-being matters, and my family matters. Right now, it’s all about competing, staying healthy, and playing some great basketball. I think I’ve done that so far, so we’ll see what we got.”
For what it's worth, fans on X were ripping apart Shams in the comments after Butler's agent went off. It's not too often you see an agent publicly call out a reporter, especially one with the reputation of Charania.
Wild stuff.