Celtics vs Heat in a game 7 is a series that is built to upset me. Two loathsome franchises with two of the most annoying fanbases in sports with rosters full of guys who are annoying who have a tendency to play rockfight basketball, which is annoying.
Not exactly my cup of tea.
And yet it goes without saying that this series is completely captivating, as almost any 7-game series would be, but surely every 7-game series where both teams have gone on 3-game win streaks must be.
Most interesting to me is the case of one Jimmy Butler and his place in basketball, which may be hanging in the balance a little bit more than is being acknowledged.
The list of Butler Fans is long and the list of his detractors is very short. His story is Disney movie grade, an overlooked high school recruit who had to go the JUCO route before going to Marquette, an overlooked afterthought draft prospect who blossomed into a two-way player who developed into a star who developed into a superstar is an easy script to write. He has the charisma that superstardom requires, a throwback offensive style of game that new school and old school can appreciate, and, of course, that Jimmy Butler Style Of Sociopathy, a manic desire to shut haters up and assert his greatness.
I think I’m in that camp. Butler rocks and occupies a very important role in the NBA as the requisite Insane Person. Despite Jayson Tatum’s hero worship, it’s Butler who wears the mantle of Kobe Brain in 2023. But Butler The Concept is not an open and shut case, and staring down the gun barrel of a historic, unprecedented collapse should cause a step back and a re-evaluation.
One story of Jimmy Butler’s career goes like this:
Butler, the last pick in a first round that included luminaries like Derrick Williams, Enes Kanter, Jan Vesely, Bismack Biyombo, and Jimmer Fredette going in the top 10, fights tooth-and-nail to get into the rotation of the While Derrick Rose Was Injured Bulls, becomes an All-Star and heir apparent to Rose, is disrespected by an organization of front office losers and goes to Minnesota, where he was surrounded by too many on-court losers to have an organizational impact, gets to Philadelphia where he drags End Stage Losers in Ben Simmons and Joel Embiid to within an insane bounce of the Eastern Conference Finals, forces his way to Miami, and becomes the best playoffs specialist of the past few seasons, even dragging an undermanned Heat team to the finals.
With a slightly different color shader, those last 6 years look pretty different. Butler’s time in Minnesota is certainly a failure, though the prevailing wisdom is Karl-Anthony Towns and Andrew Wiggins couldn’t match Butler’s intensity and the failure rests with them over Butler. With what we know now about Andrew Wiggins and his late career renaissance with Golden State, is that still fair? Maybe Butler owns a bit of the blame for a big three of KAT, Wiggins, and Butler combining to be worse than The E’Twaun Moore Pelicans and The Lamarcus Aldrige/Kyle Anderson Spurs.
Butler then spent a half-season with Philadelphia. His lack of connection with Ben Simmons makes perfect sense now, as Simmons has been revealed to be a complete joker, but the top 7 rotation players on that Sixers team were extremely legitimate. Maybe Butler could have/should have taken that team just one shot further. In Game 7, Butler went 5/14 from the floor while the alpha across from him, Kawhi Leonard, dished out 41 and 8.
In Miami, do you give Butler full credit for the Bubble Finals appearance? The Bubble feels more and more like an outlier with every passing year. Elsewhere, the Heat have been extremely underwhelming in the actual season before turning it on for the playoffs. Does it say something negative about the Heat’s best player that the team can’t keep the pedal down for the 82-game season and only excels in the 16-game season?
Butler, at this point, has either earned or been given the benefit of the doubt at every stop. And to be clear, I find it hard to argue against that in general. However, it is unusual how willing we have been to give that to Butler, and to me the best explanation as to why it continues to happen is the optics around what Being Jimmy Butler Looks Like.
Butler has the aesthetic of what NBA Superstars are supposed to act like. He is brash, he is sometimes arrogant, and he is, above all else, and extremely machismo/tough/alpha/whatever-your-choice-of-word-to-describe-that-kind-of-guy. While the NBA has moved beyond the 1990’s in every on-court way, “greatness” is still seen through the lens of Jordan or Kobe’s “And I Took That Personally” ethos. That feels anachronistic, to me. The young superstars, certainly, do not fit that mold, in really any sport (Pat Mahomes, Josh Allen, Giannis, Luka Doncic, Nikola Jokic, Shohei Ohtani, Mike Trout, Anthony Edwards to name a few who are decidedly more normal people). Heat Culture, if you can forgive me for the eye rolling statement here, feels like some outmoded version of masculinity that venerates weird antisocial anger that wouldn’t fly outside of a basketball arena.
All of which brings us to Game 7. Win, and win with a big Butler game, and the Heat are an all-time underdog who made the championship as an 8-seed on the back of their best player. Lose, and Jimmy Butler’s poor performances will be the headline act in the biggest collapse in NBA history. Butler is 33, the best basketball of his career is behind him. He will get more chances, but not too many more.
Game 7 is an all-time legacy game, fairly or unfairly. One wrong result for Butler and the whole weight of his career could be thrown out of alignment.
Other than that, nothing to worry about.