Perhaps little says as much about the convoluted current relationship between Jimmy Butler and the Miami Heat as this: The team has reached the end game of its seven-game unpaid suspension of the former All-Star forward with the situation nonetheless ongoing.

Butler could return from his seven-game suspension on Friday. Will his stalemate with Heat end or further fester tension?

Jimmy Butler is expected to play for Miami again Friday when it hosts the Denver Nuggets, a game that would be his first since the Heat confirmed that he wants a trade and that they are trying to accommodate that request.