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Tyler Herro Rips Reporter Over Jimmy Butler Quote

Originally posted on Athlon Sports | By Gautam Varier | Last updated Apr 30, 2025 2:04 PM ET

The 2024-25 NBA season isn't one that the Miami Heat and their fans would want to remember. The whole Jimmy Butler saga loomed over the team for much of the first half of the campaign, and it would later end with them being swept in humiliating fashion by the Cleveland Cavaliers.

There were a couple of positives to take from this season for the Heat, though, and one of them was how well Tyler Herro played.

Herro averaged 23.9 points, 5.2 rebounds, 5.5 assists, and 0.9 steals per game for the Heat in 2024-25. With Butler taking a backseat on offense and then heading off to the Golden State Warriors, the Heat needed Herro to step up, and he did.

Herro became an All-Star for the first time this year, but he wasn't quite able to replicate his success in the regular season during the playoffs. The 25-year-old scored just 17 points over the last two games as the Heat lost by a combined 92 points.

After Game 3 of the series, a quote made by Herro before the game to The Athletic's Jared Weiss went viral. In it, Herro admitted he needed Butler to win.

“Obviously, I know I need Jimmy to win," Herro told Weiss. "If we had Jimmy right now, I feel like it’d be a completely different situation. We probably wouldn’t even be the eighth seed.”

The quote raised eyebrows. That was viewed as a concerning admission that you wouldn't ever expect a player to make, and Herro has now claimed that his words were taken out of context. He posted two stories on Instagram in which he ripped Weiss and expressed his distaste for the reporter.

"Dude asked me a question in the timeframe of Jan-Feb when the 'Jimmy Saga' was happening," Herro wrote, via The Dunk Central.

"I said I had came into the season thinking I was playing off of Jimmy, to him getting trading and I had to switch my mindset from needing Jimmy to me being the lead guy, and I spoke about the things I learned from JB. Never said I need anyone to win games. Y'all trippin n buddy from The Athletic who wrote the article is a goofy."

"I usually don't clear (expletive) up either, but I don't like dude from The Athletic," the guard concluded.

Herro is now entering an offseason where he might have a big decision to make. He would be eligible to sign a three-year, $149.7 million extension with the Heat on Oct. 1, or he could wait another year and potentially get a four-year, $207 million deal.

This article first appeared on Athlon Sports and was syndicated with permission.

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