Jimmy Butler’s future with the Miami Heat has been one of the dominant stories in the NBA for the last month. What began as “teams are asking about Jimmy” became “Jimmy would prefer a new team” and then “Jimmy has requested a trade”, which the Heat responded to by suspending Butler for seven games.

Butler returned to action last week and played three games of mostly uninspired, but not disastrous basketball as Miami went 1-2 over that stretch. That seemed to signal that the star and the Heat had reached a detente with a few weeks left until the trade deadline, with Butler playing and the Heat doing what they can to find him a trade — with the logistics of moving Butler, especially to his preferred destination in Phoenix, extremely difficult. That lasted all of four days before word broke on Tuesday that Butler had “tripled down” on his trade request, with Shams Charania reporting the Heat were suspending him again for two more games on Wednesday for missing the team’s flight to Milwaukee.

According to Charania, Butler planned on flying separately to meet the team in Milwaukee, but is now expected to be told to stay home from their two-game road trip. After this quick road trip, the Heat are back home and have five more games on the schedule before the trade deadline hopefully brings a merciful end to this saga for all parties, not the least of which being fans who are tired of all of it.