Moving On Is Overrated, Let's Talk About Jimmy Butler Some More
There's a difference between being validated and being right.
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It still catches me off guard when the national guys do it. By this point you pretty much have to expect your Twitter timeline to be overtaken with Process Trusters setting themselves on fire over Jimmy Butler's continued playoff excellence anytime he does a thing -- usually with some mix of Jimmy yearning, Al Horford scorn and front office blood lust. But when I also see a non-Sixers guy like Marc Stein having his primary takeaway from Game Five of an L.A.-Miami finals being "Man, Philly" -- yeah, that's when I know that I've been beat.
So first off, just for the record: I never actually believed I would convince anyone that continuing to talk about Jimmy Butler was a waste of time. Spike always seems to think that I truly expect to turn the tide on 150 years of Philadelphia sports history every time he hits publish on one of my articles, but I recognize that forces far, far bigger than myself are at play here, and that trying to slow down let alone stop the full momentum of Sixers fandom and/or social media was a fool's errand. Mostly I just wanted to vent my own frustrations at my fellow Sixers Twitterers' inability to even pause on the Jimmy stuff -- because it was interrupting my own ability to be able to grieve and let go, to move on from this incredibly difficult and discouraging Sixers season.
But now I think I get it, at least a little bit. Moving on is overrated. It's never really been what Sixers fandom is about -- obviously -- and as brutal as this season was, it's no exception. I realize now that it's not as important to us as Sixers fans to feel celebrated or vindicated as it is to simply feel involved, to feel centered. Jimmy Butler's thriving makes the Sixers a laughing stock, but it also makes us relevant, for better or much, much worse. It means that even folks who don't have a horse in the race watch one of the most exciting Finals games of the 21st century and end up going "Man, Philly." We're narcissists at heart; even if the conversation is entirely at our expense, it's better than being left out of it altogether.
And frankly, it means that we have a reason to still feel invested one way or the other, even if pretty much every outcome hurts at this point. After all, look at the upcoming sports schedule: With baseball, hockey and basketball all about to be wrapped for the season, we're in for some pretty lean months ahead. Talk yourself into five weeks' worth of excitement over having the 21st pick in a draft class that even the Fran Frischillas of the world can't seem to get more than a semi over if you want, but aside from that, it's gonna be a long socially distanced winter of shouting empty takes into the void in between crushing Eagles performances. Compared to that, stabbing ourselves in the neck over Jimmy Butler... well, it's good to still feel something, I guess.
So fine. There's probably only one game left of Jimmy Butler highlights to drown our sorrows in -- or rather, to further drown us in sorrow -- and I suppose I should be taking this opportunity as much as anyone. Allow me, then, to wave the white flag and empty the clip on my own Jimothy half-takes before Game Six tonight. See y'all at the bottom of the ocean.
1. One thing nobody seems to talk about with Jimmy is that it legitimately was a debate about whether he was worth a max contract at the end of last playoffs. He had a great series against the Raptors, but he was an injury-prone player who would be starting his next contract in his 30s, was inconsistent and weird for the Sixers through most of the regular season and first round, had the Thibodeau stink on him from early in his career, and hadn't proven he could be the best player on a championship-caliber team. Most of us (including me) still wanted them to re-sign him and figure it out later, but a lot of smarter folks than us considered that such a contract would very likely soon end up an albatross -- if I remember correctly, Derek Bodner even said on the Ricky that it would be a tossup as to who would be more untradeable on a max deal, him or Tobias.
And we'll see how Jimmy ages from here. Obviously if you knew you were getting even one season (or one post-season) like this out of him, you'd re-sign him regardless of the price tag and take any sunk cost on the back end as the price of doing championship-caliber business. But there's still a pretty good chance that age 33 and age 34 Jimmy ends up with Heat fans checking Basketball-Reference's contracts page to figure out how they're gonna jettison him in time to keep their Adebayo/Herro/other-lucked-into-star title window open. Just saying.
2. There's a difference between being validated and being right. Was Jimmy validated that the teams he forced his way out of in Chicago, Minnesota and now Philadelphia were flawed situations with uninspiring management and teammates who weren't yet ready to do what it takes? Certainly seems like it at this point. Does that mean that he was right to pull all of his shenanigans, to humiliate his Minnesota teammates in such hilariously public fashion, to cause unresolved friction in the Philly locker room and then continue to lay seeds of further sabotage after getting out? Still seems like a hard sell to me!
I like Jimmy. I enjoy his transparent villainy and laughably obvious self-mythologizing. I think the league is a better, more interesting place for him being a major factor in it. But let's not pretend like his on-court greatness has anything to do with actually justifying his off-court spreading of non-stop malaise and entropy. He's not wrong, he's just an asshole.
3. For all the This Could Be Us playing that Sixers fans have done since Jimmy's rise coincided with our own downfall, there's one possibility I'm surprised hasn't been discussed more. It seems to be pretty near consensus at this point that there was no way to retain both Ben Simmons and Jimmy this offseason, and that letting Jimmy go was essentially choosing Ben over him. That part of the move is still pretty hard to argue with -- even though it looks to have been the wrong move for the team's short-term future, it's pretty tough to let a homegrown 23-year-old knocking on the door of All-NBA status go to cater to a 30-year-old with an extensive history of injuries and discontentedness.
But let's say they decided that building around Jimmy Butler and Joel Embiid was their best path to championship contention. What if they had re-signed Jimmy and tried to trade Ben? What could they have gotten for a proven (if highly flawed) two-way All-Star still yet to even enter his prime if they had tried to move him last summer? Could they have gotten Jamal Murray from the Nuggets, a year before he went supernova in the playoffs? Could they have maybe tempted the Suns to part with Devin Booker, back before his 8-0 Bubble run finally convinced folks he could be a winning player? Not like the Sixers really need another what if to be haunted by, but this is one I've found myself bandying about in my darker moments.
4. To the handful of my Sixers Twitter brothers, sisters and non-binary siblings out there who are already starting to pivot to "Well, just wait till you see how motivated Joel and Ben are by watching all of this!" -- bless you, and I hope to be joining your ranks soon enough. We've never learned from our mistakes before, I suppose there's no point in starting to do so now.