5 reasons the Suns shouldn’t trade for Heat star Jimmy Butler

Jimmy Butler wants the Phoenix Suns, and the Phoenix Suns want Jimmy Butler. The only thing standing in the way of their love affair is a feud between Butler and his current team, the Miami Heat.

If that plot sounds like the NBA’s version of Romeo and Juliet, it should. If Butler and Phoenix get their way, the ending will be similar — tragic.

Take it from me, Phoenix. I’ve been covering sports for the Miami New Times for more than 11 years. I’ve seen it all, from Dion Waiters’ in-flight THC meltdown to the early Big 3 drama, including “Bumpgate,” when LeBron literally shoved his coach.

Miami knows. You don’t want these Jimmy Butler problems.

Even as the Suns struggle with a disjointed, expensive roster that is barely clinging to the edge of the playoff race in the Western Conference, the juice isn’t worth the squeeze on the Jimmy Butler Experience. He will eventually break you, as he has everyone else. You will yearn for the days of paying Bradley Beal $110 million for two years of basketball service by the time Butler is done with your franchise.

Jimmy told his coach in Chicago that he hated him to his face. He put on, until now, the most infamous tantrum of all time in Minnesota and, in Philadelphia, couldn’t last half a presidency before he took his talents to South Beach. This year, the Heat have suspended him three times, including for walking out of practice and missing a team flight.

We could go on for days as to why, but here are just a few reasons the Suns should slowly step away from Butler and approach the Feb. 6 NBA trade deadline in a much less dramatic fashion.

Jimmy Butler is old

Let’s deal with some basic logic: Do the Suns really want to pay Butler more than $50 million a year as he heads into his late 30s? That’s what the Suns would be signing up for next season and beyond, pairing a 36-year-old Butler with a 37-year-old and oft-injured Kevin Durant.

Few NBA stars maintain the same level of stardom as they approach 40. Butler isn’t LeBron James, and LeBron James is hardly LeBron James much of the time these days.

‘Regular Season Jimmy’ is not a good time

The last time Butler played more than 70 games in a season, Barack Obama was president. During Butler's tenure in Miami, he’s missed at least 18 games every season.

The Heat have been able to get by in a weakened Eastern Conference, limping into the play-in tournament and hoping “Playoff Jimmy” showed up. But do the Suns want to half-ass regular seasons in a Western Conference full of much younger and hungrier stars?

Trust Heat fans when we tell you that you do not want to be sitting around every November waiting for Butler’s ankle to heal while he posts about his latest after-work socialite side quest on social media.

Durant and Butler will mix like oil and water

Durant already has a reputation for engineering an exit from teams where he clashed with other players. Butler clashes with the best of them when times are tough. If Butler was willing to burn it down around Pat Riley — a legend in the game — he’ll butt heads with the notoriously loose-lipped Durant in practice.

Durant fights back against random people on Twitter. Imagine how it plays out when his teammate starts posting country music songs that are clear trolls of him on Instagram. Butler will be all sunshine and rainbows, gushing about his teammates for 12 months. After that, he will go full-blown diva in the comments section.

Pairing them now is just signing up to eventually trade one or both for draft picks when the pairing doesn’t work out.

Jimmy Butler cares only about Jimmy Butler

The bottom line is this: Butler will say all the right things about wanting to win an NBA title. Then he will spend his off days at tennis matches, drinking out of a plastic cup and working on his “business responsibilities” all season, just as he has done with the Heat.

Do the Suns want to sign up for the tail end of a career that’s sure to explode in their faces, a quitter who already has $350 million in the bank? They shouldn’t.

There are many more fish in the sea, most of who will respect the franchise, their teammates and, most importantly, the city.

Butler doesn’t play nice

The next time Butler plays well as part of a “Big 3” will be the first. He needs to be the star of the show, or else his ego will get the best of him.

In Minnesota, he didn’t want to share headliner status with Karl-Anthony Towns and Andrew Wiggins. In Philadelphia, he was a short-term fit next to Joel Embiid. He’s been the man in Miami, but this season he scoffed at the suggestion of modernizing the offense to showcase Tyler Herro.

Durant is a bigger fish than all of them, and Devin Booker is a bigger star than most. Butler would be the third banana, which won’t sit well with him.

Jimmy Butler never works out. Take it from his exes.