Jimmy Butler, great bad guy of the NBA: a story that no longer holds up

For everyone he is the perfect villain of the story. “It doesn’t bother me at all”, Jimmy Butler he replied to reporters, with impeccable phlegm, not later than a year ago. “I will always be the bad guy. All right. Bad boys are welcome in the Miami Heat organization. And I love my teammates.” Here: if bad boys mean a handful of mangy, compact and terrible players to face, basketball-speaking, then Butler continues to be right. And he is increasingly the ringleader of the boulder – the proverbial pebble would not be enough – which continues to jam the NBA gears. Swept away the certainties of Antetokounmpo, the dreams of the Knicks. And now not even the battleship Boston is doing well, immediately below in the re-edition of the 2020 Eastern Conference final. Against the number eight seed. Against a champion who in the playoffs, from 2020 to today, has played 13 games of over 35 points. That is like no one. When no one expected it.

It’s kind of the leitmotif of Butler’s life, backs to the wall well before basketball – kicked out of the house at 13, taking refuge on the hardwood – and capable of making it better every time. A family movie plot. Which in fact sent the rhetoric of sport into raptures: Jimmy alone against the world, Jimmy the hothead. The prima donna, the locker room smasher. And then that surname of the designated culprit: he was the butler (butler, in English)!

At 33, Jimmy is little of that. “The only thing that bothers him is being called a superstar,” says Markieff Morris, who played with him last year. “Because on the pitch he is altruistic and off the pitch he values ​​teammates and coaches. Instead of having them torpedoed as half the NBA is rumored ”. Facts matter more than opinions. In his twelve-year career, Butler has worked with only four coaches: mainly Tom Thibodeau and Erik Spoelstra, who have put him at the center of lasting team groups. And capable of always renewing themselves, like these Miami Heat. Dislike is another false myth: in a recent survey by BetOnline, based on the sentiment of comments on Twitter, Butler is only 18th among the most hated players in the league. Behind James, Morant. But also to Jokic, Embiid and Curry. Then there’s the attitude in the game: Butler has his character, he never tells them. In these playoffs, however, he is losing even the patina of trash talker. It irritates only because it scores. Always and in all ways, or if he doesn’t do it, he gets fouled. Yet he smiles.

So instead of a bad soloist, pissed off and tired, to put it like Clint Eastwood, an inexhaustible, zen and well-liked man-team makes his way. At ease among his people: a few days ago, on the eve of his departure for Boston, Jimmy spent the entire morning in front of the truck-bar that sells his coffee. He chatted with the fans, sat at the table with them. And he was talking about basketball. Then he flew to the TD Garden to win game-1, with 35 points on the scoresheet. But heck: peace comes before the ring. Shattered aesthetics, butler to whom.