Jimmy Butler's Status For Heat-Spurs Game

On Friday evening, the Miami Heat will be in Texas to face off against the San Antonio Spurs. 

However, they will be without most of their key players, including superstar Jimmy Butler.  

Via Tim Reynolds of AP on Thursday: "Jimmy Butler (dental), Caleb Martin (left knee), Nikola Jovic (right knee), Jaime Jaquez (left groin) and Josh Richardson (left foot) all out for Heat-Spurs tomorrow, as are Bam Adebayo, Tyler Herro, Kevin Love and Kyle Lowry (all to let others play)."

The Heat won their first preseason game (earlier this week) by a score of 113-109 over the Charlotte Hornets.  

Butler also did not play in that game. 

Butler is coming off another sensational season where he averaged 22.9 points, 5.9 rebounds, 5.3 assists and 1.8 steals per contest while shooting 53.9% from the field and 35.0% from the three-point range in 64 games. 

The Heat went into the NBA playoffs as the eighth seed in the Eastern Conference but were able to defeat the Milwaukee Bucks (first seed), New York Knicks (fifth seed) and Boston Celtics (second seed) in the first three rounds. 

They made the NBA Finals for the second time in the previous four seasons but lost to Nikola Jokic and the Denver Nuggets in five games.

Butler is entering his 13th season in the NBA and has also played for the Chicago Bulls, Minnesota Timberwolves and Philadelphia 76ers. 

His career averages are 18.2 points, 5.3 rebounds, 4.2 assists and 1.6 steals per contest in 754 regular season games. 

More on the Miami Heat can be read here