Back in the 2020 bubble, Jimmy Butler put up an admirable performance, taking two games off the 2020 Lakers, who had Anthony Davis playing at the highest level in his career, and a still spry 35 year-old LeBron James. Many did not give Butler much heat for this series loss, because he managed to outclutch the Lakers twice, despite his teammates (Goran Dragic and Bam Adebayo) getting injured and missing time in the series. Many did not blame him for getting a ring. It seemed like a perfect example of how circumstance plays a role in winning a ring. He ran into both AD and LeBron playing at a high level, while being undermanned.
Similarly, the last two years saw Butler admirably carry a Miami Heat team with a lot of undrafted players to deep runs. This earned him the nickname “Playoff Jimmy” and “Himmy Buckets”.
So what happened in this year’s finals? Well, they lost. But this year was a little different.
Bam averaged some 20 points a game. Although, to be fair, Tyler Herro was injured and missed the whole series. And Vincent and Struss were not very consistent. While Butler ran into a Denver Nuggets team led by Nikola Jokic and Jamal Murray. So it seems like it’s not his fault again, right?
Well this is the thing. When something like this happens multiple times – him being “undermanned” and having to “carry” a team that “has no business being in the finals” against a clearly superior team, something is amiss, and it isn’t being brought up.
Here’s the reality: Butler’s skillset plays a role in why his team is the way it is. Jimmy Butler is not a strong shooter – his 3pt shooting in particular has not been that good while in Miami. He also prefers to drive and penetrate the rim a lot, so he can set up teammates to score, and draw some fouls. Butler is explosive, but not quite the athlete LeBron or Ja is, nor is he an amazing finisher at the rim, despite being good.
So as a result:
The Heat need to have bigs like Bam Adebayo that can stretch the floor… but don’t have the ability or size to handle more elite bigs like Davis or Jokic. The Heat can’t really put a true big man on their roster, or else they won’t fit well with Butler.
The Heat also need to have a bunch of shooters around them, since Butler, as mentioned before, is not a great shooter. It’s hard to find a bunch of 6’8″ two-way wings that can shoot and defend together. As we saw in this 2023 Finals, the shooters they have are capable of actually playing decent defense.
So you can see how Butler’s flaws can end up dictating the roster around him. This is a perfect example of Rings Greatness Theory in action. We can say that it is bad luck or unfortunate that Butler has to carry undermanned teams to the Finals, and that if he doesn’t go off, they’ll lose. But him even having to carry these teams is actually a product of how the team must be built to fit with Butler’s skill set.
And we saw it in this finals. There were so many possessions where Jimmy didn’t feel comfortable shooting – even when he had good looks – and preferred to defer to his role players for them to hit big shots.
It then means that Butler has to have games where he is “in the zone” and “goes off” and drops 40 for them to win. He can’t coast to 29/7/7 like Lebron or Curry can. As a result, he can get tired out as these series go on.
