Welcome to an alternative version of Heat Culture, a heel-turn worthy of its own season of Black Mirror.
The latest circus surrounding the Heat features recent reports from the Wall Street Journal that a gambling ring bet heavily against current Heat guard Terry Rozier in a 2023 game while he was playing for the Hornets. Rozier hasn’t been charged with a crime or accused of wrongdoing, but it's a bad look, considering regulators notified sports books and the NBA that unusual wagers were coming in on Rozier’s player props. This, even as the game that reportedly raised the most red flags was Rozier's final contest of the season, indicating that he truly left the game owing to injury, not in an attempt to make some guy with a name like Johnny "Bets" Baldoni a couple racks.
The Rozier shoe drops on the heels of the league banning Toronto Raptors forward Jontay Porter last year after an investigation revealed he'd disclosed confidential information to bettors and bet on NBA games while playing in the G League.
The news also comes amid a season during which Rozier is putting up all-time terrible stretches of three-point shooting performances and looking like a shell of the player the Heat traded away a first-round pick for a year ago. We're not accusing Rozier of throwing games or playing poorly on purpose, but this recent news shines an undeniably unflattering light on his play.
This latest TMZ-level firestorm surrounds a Heat team that needs more turmoil like California needs another brushfire.
On the other end of the spectrum, we have Jimmy Butler, a player who has grossed more than $300 million in his NBA career heading into his sixth season with the Miami Heat, and who, with two years and $100 million left on a deal he signed not long ago, has scoffed at the idea that he might continue giving it his all on the court while the team works on an extension next offseason.
Butler has engaged in what the Guinness Book of World Records will undoubtedly certify as the loudest attempt at "quiet quitting" ever recorded, leading to multiple suspensions, the latest of which the Heat are calling indefinite.
Jimmy Butler will likely never set foot on an NBA court in a Miami Heat jersey again. A player with $100 million owed to him, disgruntled, claiming it is not enough because his efforts on the court in 2027 must be compensated.
Again, not a good look. Not for Jimmy Butler, not for the Miami Heat.
Whether it's Rozier at the center of a gambling controversy or Jimmy Butler gambling away his career legacy, the 2024-25 Miami Heat increasingly represent a microcosm of everything wrong with sports, at least from a fan perspective, in which one's reality is whatever one believes.Dean Blandino, former NFL senior V.P. of officiating, says his brother believes the NFL is rigged -- and that he also believes Dean signed an NDA preventing him from revealing it. https://t.co/kWxNTQwfBw
— ProFootballTalk (@ProFootballTalk) January 30, 2025
In that light, the Rozier turmoil is somewhat analogous to the NFL's current dilemma: It seems the entire world believes the league favors doing whatever it takes to see the Kansas City Chiefs dynasty prevail for a third straight title. From referees rigging the game for increased ratings to players consorting with gambling rings, outsiders looking in are increasingly doing so with a side-eye to what could be happening outside the lines.
Butler, meanwhile, is the latest and most extreme example of a spoiled athlete coming unglued from reality (and the little people paying his hefty salary). And it's particularly galling coming from the same player who swore up and down that money didn't matter to him — because he already has so much of it — days before the season began.
Whatever you believe about the Rozier situation, or however you look at Jimmy Butler quitting on his team over his quest to be a half-billionaire a year sooner, the Miami Heat roster now boasts two examples of everything wrong with sports in 2025.
Here's to both players being gone this time next season and Heat Culture getting back to what happens on the court and in the training room, not in the courtroom or at the negotiation table.
