Shams:Jimmy Butler, Heat Had 'Very Testy Moments' During Season

[JN61]

Butler is a real locker room cancer. 3rd or 4th team where he alienates people...

Soft comment. Sometimes there needs to be tension and confrontation. We don't know much about the story but too many people are okay just not striving for more and Jimmy's not about that life.

Personally would have loved to play with someone like Jimmy Butler. Top tier leader in imo

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Since when toxic working athmosphere is a good thing for culture. Don't be surprised if players leave that team.

[Johnny Bball]

He's never happy.

Was he supposed to be happy when the Heat were losing games?

Is anyone happy losing? The problem is when you're a jerk and making it worse for everyone else. Which Butler does on team after team after team. It's about time Jimmy talked to someone about a few things for his own sake.

[Nites]

Was he supposed to be happy when the Heat were losing games?

They won most of their games...

Early in the season the Heat had one of the worst records in the NBA.

Earlier in the season Butler and like most of their starters were injured and rarely playing.

[Capn'O]

I'd love to have Butler back on the Bulls.

I was just thinking, Thibs is probably watching this drama like "GIVE HIM TO ME NOW!"

[Perishable517]

I think it's probably something where some outside person or media outlet saw and heard some intense man **** going on in the locker room. That's all it really takes to make a headline. Probably something some sensitive reporter heard once, and now exaggerated and made into something bigger.

When I hear and see things like this, I just assume it's some person that doesn't understand how Jimmy works and wants to make a headline to further try and crap all over Jimmy's career.

Right?? It doesn't matter. Game 1 is tomorrow and I think all players are focused on that.

Shams stirring up drama for clicks.

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[Lockdown504090]

Does jimmy butler have a successful former teammate that doesnt rave about him?

[chilluminati]

I think it's probably something where some outside person or media outlet saw and heard some intense man **** going on in the locker room. That's all it really takes to make a headline. Probably something some sensitive reporter heard once, and now exaggerated and made into something bigger.

When I hear and see things like this, I just assume it's some person that doesn't understand how Jimmy works and wants to make a headline to further try and crap all over Jimmy's career.

Yep, everything is just clickbait.

Problem with this theory is that Shams doesn't need the clicks the way a Jake Fisher or a Sam Amick do. Really no upside for him reporting something he doesn't have multiple quality sources on.

Doesn't mean there is some huge irreparable rift between Butler and the Heat, but it should surprise exactly nobody that he got into it with somebody(s). He's a proud and feisty dude and he doesn't worry about sparing feelings.

And lol at the notion that this hurts Jimmy's career. Stories like this only add to the legend he himself has attempted to create for himself.

Agreed, it does add to the Jimmy Butler legend. These reporters wouldn't say things like this unless they wanted to hurt someones lively hood. I didn't say it did, I was saying it was another attempt to further the negative narrative. And they've been attempting to for years lol. And Jimmy just proves them wrong again and again. I really believe people just don't understand how he operates

[Ryoga Hibiki]

Fair weather leaders are not true leaders.

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[Jazztop]

He helped get them to the Finals and had a great postseason but the fact remains that he’ll always be a locker room cancer. You have his type of personality then you need MJ type ability which be just doesn’t have.

[Koyen]

Butler is a real locker room cancer. 3rd or 4th team where he alienates people...

Soft comment. Sometimes there needs to be tension and confrontation. We don't know much about the story but too many people are okay just not striving for more and Jimmy's not about that life.

Personally would have loved to play with someone like Jimmy Butler. Top tier leader in imo

Sent from my SM-N960U using RealGM mobile app

Since when toxic working athmosphere is a good thing for culture. Don't be surprised if players leave that team.

Throwing "toxic" for no good reason without any real proof except for a single tweet is such a... "millenial" thing to do.

[zaz102]

Soft comment. Sometimes there needs to be tension and confrontation. We don't know much about the story but too many people are okay just not striving for more and Jimmy's not about that life.

Personally would have loved to play with someone like Jimmy Butler. Top tier leader in imo

Sent from my SM-N960U using RealGM mobile app

Since when toxic working athmosphere is a good thing for culture. Don't be surprised if players leave that team.

Throwing "toxic" for no good reason without any real proof except for a single tweet is such a... "millenial" thing to do.

It's not a single tweet though (which happens to be from one of, if not the most reliable NBA reporter). Not sure about Chicago, but things got terrible in Minnesota.

The Sixers (my team) ended up trading for Tobias Harris and got rid of him in less than a year. I was a huge fan of his play, but there was a lot rumors going on (mostly around Simmons and coaching) and clearly there was something to them to get rid of a player of his caliber so quickly/easily.

Dude's a great player and I hope this report is just BS, but come on, there's more than one tweet about his behavior causing major issues with teammates.

As somebody who's worked with jerks that think they know better than anybody else, usually most people don't like them and it does not help the work environment and usually they don't know better. Talent can help keep the person from getting let go, but that only goes so far sometimes.

[MrSparkle]

He seems like the high-demand type who would push an individual relationship over-the-top, perhaps beyond a level of cool. Just reading into the personality type... Sometimes (er, often) the payoff is worth the stress/pressure. Occasionally it’s not. If Miami could trade Jimmy for Giannis, I’m sure they would... and personality would be the 3rd item on the list, after skill/performance and age.

People read too much into locker room drama. Until the guy’s basketball game drops off with his personality (which usually happens to guys with addictions or off-court problems), it’s very funny to get down on an All-NBA player because “he’s a jerk.”

[Eagle4]

Pat Riley wont stand for that shh

You must not know Pat, he loves this. As long as Butler himself is putting it all on the floor, impacting winning and leading then Riles is content. It's not like Butler is trying to take over parts of mgmnt decisions which is what Riley took exception with Lebron.

Butler is the prototypical Heat player. Wade and Bron literally either chewed out Spo or bumped him at one point. Wade and Riles himself had issues themselves one more than one occasion. Dominant leaders are gonna make their feelings known. At the end of the day Butler just needs to win. People need to stop acting like Butler is some off court disaster getting in trouble. All his actions are done to try and win ball games and he's been quite effective.

[Statlanta]

For now he's a good leader. When more players than Tyler Herro start slipping in production, like Dragic or Jimmy himself, then we could see who's been right between all the older organizations and Jimmy despite all those "winning seasons due to Jimmy".

[KGtabake]

Wth is wrong with his agent?
Butler can speak for himself if he wants to.

It's literally an agent's job to speak on behalf of their client. What's wrong with him? He's doing the job he gets highly compensated for performing.

His job is to use this language against journalists? How come all agents don't do the same then?

[Heat3]

I am told there were very testy moments between a Heat player and the rest of the roster. Clearly the Heat have a problem with this type of cancerous player…

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Heat expect everyone to hold each other accountable. Haslem does it when he doesn’t play, of course Jimmy will do it when he’s the leader. This is nothing new. Even Mourning back in the day told Riley to get his ass back in the locker room and be a leader when he was down after a playoff loss.

[Knightfall]

I'd love to have Butler back on the Bulls.

I was just thinking, Thibs is probably watching this drama like "GIVE HIM TO ME NOW!"

Thibs probably is. Knicks fans will love him. And I agree with my fellow bulls fan. Love to have him back in Chicago.

[WHITE_HOT_HEAT]

What a bunch of absolute pansies in these thread... Demanding perfection means conflicts and arguments. I like Shams but reporting has become all about getting clicks..

[Hornet Mania]

Butler is the kind of **** that you put up with because he gets results, bottom line.

I love his game, but he may struggle to find a place in the league when he begins to decline. You can only lord it over everyone else like that if you're a true franchise guy, I'm not sure his ego will allow him to take a step back from the edge when he's the 4th/5th-best on a team. It will be interesting to see if he can turn it down a couple notches and be a tough-minded role player rather than a ruthless taskmaster in a few years.

[Doranku]

And yet here we are, going into the playoffs with the Heat playing their best basketball of the year. The Heat are 33-19 with Butler, 7-13 without him. That's Steph Curry type impact.

His leadership style may not be everyone's cup of tea, but you can't argue with the results. Jimmy is a winner.

But what has he won? How many rings does he have?
Isn't that RealGM standard?

Honestly I don't care much about any of the soap opera drama that seems to follow Butler at ever stop but the double standard is striking.
I wonder how many defenders here would be singing a totally different tune if the report were about someone like Kyrie Irving instead of Butler.

What has he won? Here's a better question. What talent has he played with?

Joakim Noah? Wade's corpse? Gasol's corpse? KAT and Wiggins? One year of Simmons and Embiid where Embiid absolutely **** the bed while the team got bounced in 7 by the eventual champions?

Jimmy Butler's teams overachieve. He took a Heat team that wasn't on anyone's radar to the finals and took two games off Bron and AD with his 2nd and 3rd options injured. He played in Minnesota for ONE year and took them to the playoffs for the first time since KG's MVP season 15 years prior. Took the 76ers to 7 games against the champion Raptors and was a Kawhi miracle shot away from OT even with Embiid putting up a dreadful 18/9 on 37% shooting for the series.

Kyrie, on the other hand, has made the playoffs exactly one time as his team's best player. His team underachieved that year while he underperformed. Explain to me the double standard you're referring to, because I'm not seeing it.