Jimmy Butler became the most effective player in the NBA playoffs, although that wasn’t enough in the end. What did we learn from the post-season transformation?
The Miami Heat does not advance to the NBA Finals. Jimmy Butler didn’t win the MVP in the inaugural Eastern Conference Finals, but no one in the seven-game series between the Boston Celtics and the Heat came out looking better than him.
Despite his side’s defeat, Butler was the best player on the planet both in Game 7 and in the game before it, amassing two back-to-back masterpieces that simultaneously cement his place as one of the league’s most influential players while also raising the question of what makes Jimmy Buckets the player.
It feels weird and inaccurate to say this, but Jimmy Butler was never one of the NBA’s elite. It seems especially absurd given his dominant performance throughout the postseason, even though in 11 seasons in the NBA he’s made only four All-NBA teams and is not listed above the third. However, through three rounds of playoffs, has anyone seemed more dominant, more capable of taking on a match on their own than Butler?
He scored 40 points four times in the playoffs after failing to do so once in the regular season, often looking like the top player in a series that featured Trae Young, Joel Embiid, James Harden and Jayson Tatum. It would be shocking, but this isn’t the first time this has happened. It’s not like Butler implements a massive style change once the postseason arrives. Rather, it is concentrating and reducing as well as expanding in scope. There is a level of intent and intensity here that cannot be called 82 games in a row. There was nothing left in sight for which one’s efforts should be saved. All this to be poured here.
What did we really learn about Jimmy Butler?
Butler is still a bit of a cipher. Winning is his main concern, and he is so intent on conveying this that it can come across as performative. His constant talk about his desire and the discipline of the opponent and being in the gym at 2:30 a.m. is already a bit exhausting, but the self-seriousness Always been undermined A little bit of his love for coffee, Taylor Swift and dominoes. It can sometimes seem as if he’s trying a little too hard to convince you of how tough he is, but at least he knows how to swear, how to be human in the in-between moments of competitions.
Something I think about a lot is the way things ended with Jimmy in both Minnesota and Philadelphia. Either way, he seemed to be part of an up-and-coming team, with at least one young superstar he could pair up to contend for a title for years. However, in less than a year, he walked away from both cases. After a theater bombing in Minnesota, where he challenged Karl Anthony Towns and Andrew Wiggins’ will to win, forcing the Wolves to deal with him, he helped make the 76ers terrifying. Butler pinned the equalizer four seconds before in Game Seven of the Conference semi-final against the Raptors. But that immediately became irrelevant due to the match winner being Kawhi Leonard. A significant part of me still believed that the 76ers would have won the title all that year if one of those four rebounds had gone differently.
Then Butler left anyway. There were rumors about his dissatisfaction with the coaching staff and front office, stating after the fact that “I didn’t know who was in charge.” I think that was the biggest thing for me.” And so he found someone as obsessive and focused as himself in Pat Riley, going to Miami even though they had missed all three of the playoffs from the past five seasons.
It’s as if he’d rather lose with a group of like-minded players than win with talented teammates who lack his individual focus. I think he sees that, with his influence, talent, and strength of the hill, he can turn any group of like-minded teammates into a competitor. The trick is to find people like this.
Jimmy Butler now finds himself in a perfect position. He can only exceed the expectations placed on him. I think about how little judgment was made of Allen Iverson for not winning a championship. Simply pulling the 76 into the finals in 2001 was enough. Reggie Miller looks at it the same way. There was only one Finals appearance in 2000, but there were enough great games and memorable moments that the Pacers’ failure to defeat the Lakers was minor. Those other events go beyond the lack of a title.
Although not considered one of the best players in the NBA, Butler may be more than just a superstar. It is an embodied culture, a person whose presence alone can turn a team into something more than the sum of its disparate parts.
You see, talking about Butler makes me feel a little silly, like someone who trades in mysticism or pseudoscience. It forces me to talk about things like “intention,” “determination,” and “passion” as if they were computable and actual rather than abstractions that can be seen and interpreted however one wants. In the NBA, everyone wants to win, and the level of talent is so high that an excess of passion is not enough to make up for a lack of ability.
However, there is Jamie, who is truly super talented, and he breaks through defenses with an excess of determination. It is not enough to change his fate, but enough to fend off him for longer than anyone can imagine. It is a failure noble enough to qualify for success.
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