NBA Finals

Win or lose, Butler deserves superstar status

Ariel Ian Clarito

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Win or lose, Butler deserves superstar status
Never named in the All-NBA First or even Second Team, Jimmy Butler finally shows he can hang with the best of them

Jimmy Butler is a bonafide NBA star. But he has never really been considered a superstar or one of the game’s true elites.

That distinction is reserved for the likes of LeBron James, Anthony Davis, Giannis Antetokounmpo, James Harden, Kawhi Leonard, Kevin Durant, Steph Curry, and Russell Westbrook.

These names were top overall draft picks, league MVPs, or NBA champions. They all have made the All-NBA First Team multiple times. When healthy, they are practically guaranteed spots in the All-Star Games. 

Butler has made the All-NBA Third Team on 3 occasions, but never the All-NBA First or even Second Team. In his nine-year career, he has made the All-Star Games 5 times, but he was not even selected to the annual showcase in 2019. 

When the Miami Heat announced at the beginning of this season that they finally acquired a franchise player in Butler through a complex four-team, sign-and-trade deal, the move was met with skepticism by a lot of people. 

No one really thought of Butler as a franchise player who was capable of leading a team to the promised land. Yet the Miami Heat believed enough in Butler to offer him a four-year, $141-million deal. 

Butler has had to deal with doubts his entire career. He was not a highly-recruited prospect in college, yet through sheer determination founded on an unwavering commitment to outworking everyone else in the team, he became Marquette’s go-to guy. 

In the 2011 NBA Draft, Butler was the last person selected in the first round by the Chicago Bulls. 

No one would have ever thought almost a decade ago that the Chicago Bulls rookie who only averaged 2.6 points and 1.3 rebounds would be where he is now – the centerpiece of Miami Heat’s quest for the ballclub’s fourth NBA title, going head-to-head against the best player of his generation in LeBron James, and registering numbers worthy of an all-time great.

Butler has become an unlikely, almost reluctant superstar in this year’s playoffs. How he is viewed now is a stark contrast to the perception that has pervaded about him in recent years – a locker room cancer with a history of squabbling with teammates and driving disharmony within the organization. 

With Miami where he has found a culture that befits and further nourishes his competitiveness, Butler has become the ultimate role model.

In his first practice as a member of Miami, Butler showed up at 3:30 am for the team’s 10 am practice. “Just a little extra work while y’all in your third dream,” he told the South Florida Sun-Sentinel in one of his earliest interviews as a Heat. 

The likes of Bam Adebayo and Meyers Leonard eventually began clocking in at the same time to join him for early morning workout sessions.

Coach Erik Spoelstra once remarked that Butler has “Hall of Fame work ethic.” This almost maniacal drive to stay in shape has helped him with the Herculean effort he has been putting up in the 2020 playoff bubble.

After Miami’s workman-like sweep of the Indiana Pacers in the first round of the playoffs, they dominated against the Milwaukee Bucks, who finished with the best record in the entire NBA. 

Miami raced to a 3-0 series lead as Butler scored 27.6 points while being tasked as the primary defender of Antetokounmpo. Going up against the back-to-back MVP was not a deterrent to Butler’s efficiency, connecting on 52.6% of his shots as Miami left no doubt as to who was the better team by winning the series 4 games to 1. 

Against Boston in the Eastern Conference finals, Butler took on the unenviable task of having to cover Jayson Tatum while also logging the most minutes on the floor for the entire Heat team.

As if beating 3 teams in the Eastern Conference playoffs with better regular season records was not hard enough, Butler has elevated his game by a few more notches in the finals against the heavily-favored Los Angeles Lakers. 

The numbers Butler has been producing have been impressive, even if these were produced not in a manner that has been filled with highlight plays that lead to viral videos. 

Rather, Butler has been doing it in the manner he knows best: no fancy plays nor profligacy in movement, but by looking for the best possible attempts and constantly involving his teammates.

Through 5 games in the finals, Butler has been on the floor an average of 42.6 minutes per outing. No other player from either team is playing more than 38.2 minutes per game. 

He is averaging close to a triple-double with 29 points, 8.6 rebounds, and 10.2 assists. He is shooting at a mind-boggling clip of 55.5% from the field while also being a pesk on defense with 2.6 steals per game.

Butler’s value, though, goes beyond mere numbers. It is the fight, the grit, and the spirit he displays, game in and game out, that are contagious and inspire belief among the rest of the Heat. 

His fearlessness emboldens his teammates to look at each of the Lakers in the eye, as if telling them that the Heat will not back down and will fight until there is nothing left in the tank. 

The sight of Butler slumped at the baseline railing after he was fouled in the dying moments of Game 5 will be one of the most memorable images from this year’s finals. 

Only, just when everyone thinks he has expended every last ounce of energy he has, Butler seemingly is able to summon a little more in the recesses of his human, or probably superhuman, strength when everyone else has gassed out. 

He starts the game as the playmaker given the Heat’s dearth in the point guard spot, topscores for his team, and still has the audacity to defend James almost the entire game. He has found ways to carry the Heat to two victories in a finals series where a lot of experts and fans projected a Lakers sweep. 

Win or lose in this year’s finals, Butler has shown he can hang with the best of them and that he belongs among the league’s elites. His statistics back this up. But it is the intangibles that set him apart from the others – his leadership, his desire to win, his willingness to take on the best player from the opposing team, his commitment to making the rest of his team better. 

Butler will never claim to be the most athletic nor the most talented. But he knows when it comes to putting in the work and the effort, he can beat just about anyone. – Rappler.com

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