Nick Wright has a bit called the Superstar Club. I don't usually endorse debate show takes, but this was a solid metaphor. Jimmy was waiting in line. In the Eastern Conference Finals against the Boston Celtics, he scored a career-high 82 points in 94 minutes. Jimmy Buckets tried to order a table at the front door, but his card was declined. Down two in the final 17 seconds, Butler raced down the floor, turned down the one-on-one gladiator in the paint with 35-year-old Al Horford, and rattled it off the edge of the rim.
You could almost hear creaky basketball fans moaning, "Steph Curry ruined basketball", at the moment a 23 percent 3-point shooter (in the regular season) opted for a risky game-winning triple in the waning seconds of Game 7. Jimmy Buckets has made 18 pull-up shots from downtown during the playoffs at a 26 percent clip. An and-1 situation was just as likely as a pull-up 3. That was a bad basketball play for the team.
It's not like Curry or Harden. He doesn't have the bounce of Lavine. His offensive style isn't as aesthetically pleasing as his perimeter peers. He's as likely to operate out of the mid-post and back you down or face you up and score as he is to throw a rainbow 3-pointer through the cylinder. It isn't a knock on him, but that uniqueness is part of his appeal.
Nonperishable goods are the equivalent of antediluvian game in a survivalist's Bunker. They are useful in emergencies and can be consumed in any era. He has shown he can almost have a team without all-world talent. For the past three seasons, Heat Culture has been epitomized by Butler.
In the final 20 seconds, he tried to make a play that would have placed him in a higher position in the NBA hierarchy. He made the wrong one. Three years ago, he was in the same situation against the Raptors. The game was tied at 90 with 4.2 seconds to go, whenButler drove past Serge Ibaka and layed it in. The situations are similar, even though the situations are different.
His pugnacious energy was the focus of the heat. His combative nature can bite back, as we have seen countless times in his career. It took years for the franchise to climb out of the crater left by him when he left Minnesota. Ben Simmons' acrimony with the front office led to them cutting ties.
He's basically living out Patrick Ewing's career as a future Hall of Famer who couldn't get over the hump or garner the same reverence as his peers. There is a more perimeter-oriented era. They don't have a scoring title, a defensive player of the year, or a championship ring. His career is starting to play out the same way.
In the 1995 NBA Playoffs, Ewing missed a layup against Indiana. In the 90s, Ewing was one play short of a title. He lost to Michael Jordan's first game-winner in 1982 and to the Cinderella Villanova Cats in 1985 in the most famous March Madness finals in college hoops history.
In the last three years, the NBA champion has defeated the team in the playoffs. In the 7th game of the year, Leonard made one more play than the other. In his first season with Miami, he led the Heat to the Finals, but they were defeated by Los Angeles in The Bubble. The Heat were beaten by the Milwaukee Bucks in the first round of the playoffs.
If Boston defeats Golden State, it will be a sad day. Being an NBA superstar is a lot of work. It got in the way of making the heady play because of the heart of the man. Even though he won't be back next season, anyone who watched him gut it out throughout the playoffs will be respected.
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