Golden State Warriors forward Jimmy Butler tore his ACL in the team's 135-112 win over the Miami Heat on Monday night and will miss the remainder of the 2025-26 NBA season, his agent told ESPN early Tuesday morning.
With 7:41 remaining in the third quarter of last night's game, Butler jumped to catch a pass from one of his teammates but landed oddly, causing his knee to buckle and him to immediately fall to the ground. While on the floor, he could be seen screaming in pain and holding onto his right knee. He was eventually helped to the locker room by the team's medical staff.
“I haven't talked to him since the game, but you never like to see a situation like that, especially somebody as tough as he is,” Steph Curry said after the win. “Usually, you expect him to get up, and - even if he can't finish the game - just kind of hop, get off the sideline. But I just told him to take his time, figure out what he needed in that moment. And it's kind of funny. He was still cracking jokes over there while he was on the ground. In true Jimmy fashion, he's always gonna have a good time no matter what the situation is."
Butler was having a good season for the Warriors, averaging 20 points, 5.6 rebounds, 4.9 assists, and 1.4 steals in 38 games. He also averaged the second-most minutes on the team this year, behind only Steph Curry.
At 36 years old, Jimmy Butler has long been seen as one of the preeminent players in the league with six All-Star Game appearances and five All-NBA nods. Since joining the Warriors last February, he has averaged 19.1 points, 5.5 rebounds, 5.3 assists, and 1.5 steals in 68 regular-season games.
A huge loss for the Warriors
This is an absolutely disastrous injury for the Golden State Warriors. It's not like Golden State was setting the world on fire with Butler in the lineup. As of this writing, they're slotted as the eighth seed in the Western Conference, which means they wouldn’t even be guaranteed a spot in the 2026 NBA Playoffs. They would need to win at least one NBA Play-In Tournament game to qualify for the Playoffs. That was already a tall task, which has now been made more difficult following the loss of Butler.
Jimmy Butler was the Warriors' second-best player after Steph Curry. Yet, even when he was playing, Golden State was a fringe playoff team. With Butler out for the remainder of the season, it will be hard for the Warriors to keep pace with the other Play-In teams in the West.
There aren't many people on the Warriors' roster who can give them 20 points on a nightly basis. Draymond Green is too old and ineffective offensively to fill that hole. Golden State's third- and fourth-best scorers, Brandin Podziemski and Jonathan Kuminga, have only scored 20+ points eight total times this season. On top of that, Kuminga's future in the Bay Area is murky after sources told ESPN that he requested a trade. I have no idea how the Warriors will replicate Butler's offensive output.
Butler was brought in last season to help Golden State's veteran core make one more push for an NBA Championship. After all, Steph Curry is turning 38 in two months, and Draymond Green will be turning 36 soon. Despite making the playoffs last season, an injury caused Curry to miss almost the entirety of the Western Conference Semifinals. The hope was to run it back this season with basically the same roster and make a playoff push with Butler, Curry, and Green fully healthy. Now, those plans have to be abandoned. Forget winning a championship, Golden State will be lucky to make the playoffs!
What does the future hold for Jimmy Butler?
We also have to wonder what this injury means for Jimmy Butler's future. A torn ACL is not something that athletes easily recover from. And when you factor in Butler's age, this could end up being a career killer. Just look at Kobe Bryant, who suffered a season-ending injury in 2013. The next season, he only played six regular-season games. The following year, his season was cut short by injuries. We can only hope the same fate doesn't befall Jimmy Butler.
Jimmy Butler won't play in another NBA game before turning 37 years old. We also can't forget that he has a $56.8 million cap hit next season. Golden State is not going to want to pay that type of money to an older player coming off a serious injury. There's a possibility that the Warriors try to unload him and his contract this off-season to free up enough cap space for one last Championship run.
Even if Butler makes a full recovery and returns to his 2025-26 form next season, he is scheduled to become a free agent after the 2026-27 season. While there's a chance he might want to re-sign with the Warriors, it almost certainly won't be for $50+ million. Either he'll have to take a serious pay cut or find a new team to play for in 2027.
With an injury of this magnitude, we might have seen Jimmy Butler play his last game as a member of the Golden State Warriors. In all likelihood, he will be playing somewhere else next year, and if not next season, then almost certainly during the 2027-28 campaign.
