THE BUTLER WON'T DO IT (ANYMORE)

IT serves the Miami Heat right to drop down to the play-in when your cornerstone is a part-time player.

I know who Playoff Jimmy is but how can you morph into the next coming of Michael Jordan (his rumored dad) come playoff time when you can barely help your team make it to the postseason.

In all, Jimmy Butler missed 22 games in the 2023-2024 season of the NBA. That's 60 games folks which is just about Buckets' average in a Miami uniform.

The former Marquette standout and last pick of the NBA Draft first round in 2011 has never whiffed 82 games in South Beach — not even close!

The most games he played under our kababayan Heat head coach Erik Spoelstra was actually the season prior when the 6'7" small forward suited up for 64 games before making that amazing run to the NBA Finals where they lost to the Denver Nuggets. Before that, Butler saw action in just 57, 52, and 58 games in Miami.

It can be argued that Jimmy being the antithesis of AC Green — the NBA's undisputed ironman with 1,192 straight games played from 1986 to 2001 with the LA Lakers, Phoenix Suns, Dallas Mavericks, and ironically the Miami Heat — is payback for coach Tom Thibodeau playing him almost ragged in his early years with the Chicago Bulls.

It's not only more than a quarter of the seasons he missed (his absence due to a death in the family was justified though), but also the way he played in the games he did suit up that has made me doubt whether Playoff Jimmy is still a thing or just part of history now.

For the season, Butler averaged just a shade over 20 points (20.8 points) along with 5.3 rebounds and 5.0 assists for the Heat. That's the lowest he normed for the Heat since joining them in 2019 when he averaged 19.9 points per contest.

The prolonged absence of Miami's superstar and unmistakable leader also meant that chemistry wasn't really developed within the Heat team this year, especially if you consider that the third spoke in Miami's Big 3— Tyler Herro — himself missed 40 games this season.

Good news though is the Heat's playoff hopes springs eternal as they play the Philadelphia 76ers tomorrow in the 7-8 matchup at the play-in. Winner gets No. 2 seed New York Knickerbockers in the first round, while the loser takes on the winner of the Atlanta Hawks-Chicago Bulls 9-10 matchup for the right to face top seed and Season 78 overall top seed Boston Celtics in the opening round.

My pragmatic side thinks the Heat are best served dropping both play-in games and miss the playoff entirely so they can start the post-Butler rebuild in earnest (gut the roster and leave just Bam Adebayo, Tyler Herro, Nikola Jovic, and Jaime Jaquez Jr.).

However, my glass-half full doppelganger still holds on to the belief that Spoe and company can still make a run to the NBA Finals with a healthy roster — fingers crossed — despite how low a seed they start in the playoffs.

Anyway, the Heat actually are a better road team than a home team this season, but who knows against a streaking Philly team tomorrow.

So presumably, they lose to Joel Embiid and Tyrese Maxey in the first play-in but then trounce whoever emerges between the Bulls and the Hawks for the last postseason ticket, then they will have to play Boston. They'll have to face Beantown eventually whether in the opening round or the Eastern Conference Finals, so might as well be done with it right away. The Heat incidentally has won two of the previous three playoff matchups against Jayson Tatum and company. So why would this postseason any different.

Butler better do it again!

2024-04-17T01:38:53Z dg43tfdfdgfd