Jimmy Butler Was Never Right
He was just less wrong.
How did you think the Jimmy Butler experience was going to end?
Did you envision a happy ending, with him riding into the sunset as another Heat legend? (Sorry, HEAT legend? Nope, that’s the last time I’m doing that.)
Did you imagine him standing next to Zo and Wade at Pat Riley’s retirement ceremony? Attending the summer community events? Part of the Family?
Did you think Miami was really above it all? That sure, he burned bridges and hurt people and careers in Chicago, Minnesota, and Philadelphia but that was those franchises and those people?
Did you believe that all he needed was a professional organization that would treat him with the respect he deserves and in return, there would never be any problems?
Did you think that the team’s success, reaching two fluke Finals in five years1, proved that the narrative around Butler was wrong, a media machination and he was actually the hero of the story?
Did you have reason to think that? Or did you want to believe that because we love brash actors and anti-heroes?2
Did you want to believe that because Chicago is run by a bad owner and has a history of bad management, the Wolves were the Wolves despite Thibs having had success in two of his three stops and because picking on Ben Simmons3 is a cherished pastime?
Did you think that the fact there was only this one public incident and it came in a year they made the Finals (as a play-in team), that there weren’t really problems behind the scenes?
Did you want to believe Miami was not only exceptional, but so exceptional that Butler would not try and topple the Culture?
You/we/they were wrong.
It was always going to end like this.
This is who Butler is, and he’s told us this for a decade.
DON’T #$@&%*! WITH THE MONEY VS. DON’T MESS WITH THE CULTURE
We talk about the NBA as if it just appears when the broadcast goes to the court as the players get ready for tip and then disappears once they go in the tunnel, except for the podium interviews.
But in reality, it’s a constant river of skillsets, playstyles, schemes, identities, politics, agendas, and impulses.
When a player feuds with a franchise over an extension, players never object. They back the player resoundingly, because you never, ever interfere with another player’s earning potential.
The NBA is a brotherhood built on an elite subsection of society’s ability to get paid hundreds of millions of dollars. Most of them love the game. All of them love the money.
So no player ever blames another for wanting to get paid. Yeah, it’s frustrating that that guy is clearly gunning to get his numbers up instead of playing better ball, but ultimately, it’s fine because he’s just trying to get paid and you understand that.
But there’s a balance.
It’s popular to support player empowerment because they’re advocating for themselves vs. billionaire owners. Hard to argue against that.
What doesn’t get talked about is the collateral damage.
Jimmy Butler isn’t the only player looking for his money, trying to advance his career. He wasn’t the only guy trying to do that in Chicago, Minnesota, or Philadelphia.
And yet his teammates suffered for it.
Joakim Noah was trying to compete for the playoffs at the end of his career. The younger guys were trying to make their way in the league. Karl-Anthony Towns and Andrew Wiggins were trying to figure out how to be stars. Embiid and Simmons were trying to live up to potential.
But those are just the stars. What about all the lower-salary role players who missed out on chances to shine in competitive seasons or the playoffs which would have improved their earning potential?
Butler never cared, or at least never cared enough to change his behavior in pursuit of his goals. Whoever gets hurt along the way is fine, it’s not personal, he’s just doing what’s right for Jimmy.
Maybe there’s no way to fight against ownership and the front office without collateral damage.4
But Tyler Herro is having a career season. He has a real shot at Most Improved Player which will help his future earnings. Haywood Highsmith is working his way up. Jaime Jaquez is dealing with a sophomore slump. Miami’s still trying to make Nikola Jovic a thing.5
This chaos Butler has unleashed makes everyone uncomfortable. People don’t know their future because the team is so tied to Butler. There’s very little chance of trading Butler and making the playoffs. After they trade him, a weight will be lifted and there’s a not-terrible chance Spo can use it to actually make them come together and be better.
But in the meantime, his teammates are suffering for it. He came for the front office, fine, but he also came for the coach. That’s what prompted the Heat suspension of Butler. Pat Riley will not suffer this foolishness, except he is, because he signed up for it.
NOTHING NEW UNDER THE HEAT
You can argue, and I think successfully, that the two Finals appearances and the 1-seed in 2022 proves that Butler was worth it. It gave them a real chance to win the title. I’ll push back because their two Finals appearances were exceptionally flukey and resulted in getting their teeth kicked in in the Finals.
But if you’re here going “I thought it was different there!” then you haven’t been paying attention. When I was in Miami for the 2023 Finals, I was surprised at the sense around the team that Butler was still a huge pain in the ass and always had been. He’d just been worth it.
“Sure, there are days when you dread dealing with him, but…. (/gestures at team being in the Finals because he went bonkers in six games)” more than one person said to me.
This isn’t a critique of Heat Culture even if the court and the jerseys and the t-shirts are dumb. That stuff is real. It’s a testament that they made it this long with Butler without it imploding. That’s a credit to Riley, Elisburg, Simon, Spoelstra, and his teammates. They put up with him and managed it, which led to him helping them almost win a title.
Butler ran down his Wolves teammates in that practice with the second unit. He trashed Brett Brown in the film sessions in Philadelphia. He feuded with Joakim Noah.6
His point that the Bulls were badly run and he deserved better wasn’t wrong. His point that the Wolves weren’t about the right things (and he wanted his money) wasn’t wrong. His point that Brett Brown and Ben Simmons weren’t the guys wasn’t wrong.
The next time the anti-hero seems like the good guy, the next time you see the hyper-masculine bullying routine, the next time someone tells you they’re an agent of chaos without regard for the collateral damage?
Believe them.
Jimmy Butler was never right. He was just less wrong until now.
The 2022 run was legit; they were the 1-seed built around an elite defense. They could have won the title that year; the Celtics were just a little better.
Wolverine is the most popular X-Man. No one love Cyclops. (Except me. To hell with them, Summers!)
Which honestly, he’s known to be not the most lovable person. A rare example where someone no one seems to love doesn’t succeed.
Of note, this has become Butler vs. Pat Riley. You know what it actually is? Jimmy Butler vs. Mickey Arison. This is the genius of the latest CBA; the front offices are forced to make brutal decisions that result in chaos and unhappy players they then have to deal with the ramifications of because of a system the owners devised to reduce cost. All of the financial benefits, none of the blowback. As always, the rich get richer.
No player has the widest gap between impact metrics, which I love, and eye test for methan Jovic and it drives me nuts.
WHO FEUDS WITH JOAKIM NOAH?!
Is Pat Riley diabolical enough to send Butler to the Lakers (what's Gabe Vincent up to)? Would he settle for Kris Middleton and others from the Bucks? Maybe Brooklyn develops institutional amnesia and deals Cam Johnson for Jimmy and a buckets of swaps and seconds?
I’m not going to defend Jimmy - your point very much still stands - but he wasn’t the one to sabotage the end of Joakim Noah’s Bulls career; it was an incompetent front office that signed a way over the hill Pau Gasol to start at center pushing Noah to the four, a position for which he was unsuited, and then hiring an equally incompetent coach who demoted Noah to the second unit and falsely claimed that he had agreed to it. In the midst of that chaos, Butler was just a minor disturbance. (I felt the need to clarify this because Joakim Noah was my favorite player, and the way he was treated still galls me.)