Jimmy Butler’s arrival at the Golden State Warriors has had the double effect of revitalizing the team and the player rediscovering his love for the game.
Jimmy Butler left the Miami Heat in a scorched-earth manner, not new for him since he left the Minnesota Timberwolves the same way.
There were concerns over his teammates then, and his Heat exit came as a result of a standoff between him and Pat Riley, as Butler had carried this team to the NBA final.
Now that he’s in a happy place, he hasn’t forgotten the sour experience in Miami, delivering a cold assessment of his time there with a brutal “that’s all we did” dig.
Jimmy Butler on his time with Miami Heat
Butler spent six seasons with the Miami Heat in a move that felt like a marriage made in heaven when it was done – a fiercely driven player and the famed “Heat Culture”.
Ultimately, even that couldn’t hold Butler down and he left after burning all bridges, but his time with the Heat was more than just a sour exit.
He earned All-Star honors multiple times and cracked the top-10 rankings for the MVP award as well, with his performances that carried the Heat to the NBA finals in 2020 the stuff of legends.
Apparently, none of it was good enough for the player, who has brushed away everything he did with the Heat in a simple, brutal nonchalant statement.
He said: “Yeah, it [Time with the Miami Heat] didn’t end the way that people wanted to, yada yada yada. We were alright. We didn’t win nothing like we were supposed to. So I don’t know. We made some cool runs. We had some fun. I think that’s all we did.”
Jimmy Butler’s mentality a double-edged sword
Butler was entertaining these questions because the Warriors will face his old team next, a tenure he clearly marks as a failure because he failed to win the title.
While that is a sign of elite mentality, it can also become a double-edged sword, as the Timberwolves and the Heat will know very well now.
Butler is extremely driven and happy to keep the good vibes as long as he feels the team can win but if it doesn’t, he’s prone to going ballistic.
That’s not a player the Warriors would want to have in the latter years of Steph Curry and Draymond Green and nobody is mistaking the Warriors for being proper title contenders.
It would be interesting to see how Butler reacts to that inevitable setback when the Warriors are eliminated from contention this season.
The alternative is that he finally gets the elusive ring he so desires but for that to happen, something truly nuclear would have to happen. Butler is a player who always stands at a knife’s edge and that’s as dangerous as it is elite.
