I always loved Jimmy Butler from afar. When you hear the stories about him crushing his teammates’ souls in practice, pulling a Doug Coughlin on KAT with his girlfriend1, and possibly being the illegitimate son of Michael Jordan, it’s hard not to be interested. It certainly helped that I never had to worry about him ripping my Sixers heart out. Despite being extremely talented, Jimmy Butler is much different than having just any another player around. He’s an experience. On November 12th, 2018, Sixers fans started finding this out firsthand.
The story is pretty famous at this point. Butler was kicked out of his mother’s house as a teenager, not recruited out of high school, had to transfer to Marquette out of JuCo, and was drafted 30th overall by the Bulls as a senior. With the Bulls he gradually received more run until he was an All-Defense level player and 20 point scorer by his 4th season. That’s also when he got paid for the first time (5/$95m), made All-NBA, and started feuding with teammates about not having the will to win. He had the reputation of the most fun guy in the room one minute, then ruining it the next. Even though he was the Bulls best player, they traded him to the Timberwolves for Zach LaVine, Kris Dunn, and the recent 7th overall pick Lauri Markkanen.
This is where the fun really begins. Almost immediately, Butler wanted out of Minnesota. Despite loving his former and current coach Tom Thibideau, he didn’t mesh well with teammates and demanded a trade. Minny refused. This went on for months before it hit the news and all eyes were on Jimmy in training camp. He apparently angrily joined practice with the bench players and whipped the starters all while yelling at Thibs and GM Scott Layden before storming out of the gym victorious. He was going to get traded, but where?
For the Sixers, they had been steadily improving from the Process days thanks to Joel Embiid finally being healthy. They went from 28 wins to 52 wins and now wanted to push their cache of chips forward for someone to compliment their two stars. Turns out they didn’t have to…
For the low, low price of Robert Covington, Dario Saric, Jerryd Bayless, and a 2nd round pick, the Sixers had what they thought was their missing piece between Joel Embiid and Ben Simmons. Considering his talent, this was a steal. We all loved RoCo and Dario, but they were a small price to pay for such a clear upgrade. You do that deal 11 out of 10 times. The honeymoon started great with Jimmy hitting a buzzer beater, visibly loving the Here They Come song after his first home win, and doing everything he needed at times. Behind the scenes though, Jimmy was doing his Jimmy thing and trying to undermine coach Brett Brown with comments, fights, and outright defiance. He was barely shooting 3s by the end of the season for some strange reason.
One of the stranger things that happened before the trade deadline that Sixers year was the swing the team took by trading for Tobias Harris. They gave away the farm for someone who seemed duplicative to Jimmy’s talents, albeit less than. The biggest difference between the two though is their personalities. Everyone loves Tobias Harris. Both would be free agents at the end of the season.
After Kawhi Leonard travelled and hit the series winner that playoffs, the only question left for all the fans would be how the Sixers would keep everyone. Quick answer, they didn’t want to. Behind the scenes, Ben Simmons was no fan of Jimmy needing the ball in his hands all the time and being relegated to the dunker position under the basket. Simmons was also up for a contract extension. Instead of inking Butler to a big deal, the Sixers decided to give Harris a free agent max contract, give Simmons a max extension, and bring in Al Horford. Butler was instead signed and traded to the Miami Heat for Josh Richardson.
It was the wrong move at the time and it only looked worse as time went on. 3 years later, Jimmy yeller “Tobias Harris over me?” after his Heat beat the Sixers in the playoffs. It wasn’t fair though. Despite the two getting max contracts and Harris staying with the Sixers, he was there as a hedge in case the team soured on Jimmy and didn’t want to keep him. They didn’t choose Harris over him, they chose Ben Simmons. As Butler led the Heat to two Finals appearances with less talented teams, the Sixers had to watch Simmons break down mentally and physically over his next two seasons. No matter what you think of Butler, trading Simmons at that moment of inflection would have changed everything.
As he inevitably does, Jimmy pouted his way out of Miami when they didn’t want to give him a big extension, just like he did in Chicago and Minnesota. Would it have happened in Philadelphia? Of course it would have! It’s what Jimmy does. Would it have been worth it? Considering the Sixers wasted a ton of the prime of Joel Embiid by not having a hyper competitive 2-way wing that could also act as a secondary ball handler, YES!
- Rumor was that Jimmy slept with KAT’s girl just to prove to him that he could, not unlike what happens in the movie Cocktail to Young Flanigan ↩︎
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