A Jimmy Butler Appreciation Post

The era with Jimmy Butler is officially over and it really is a damn shame in how it ended. It’s not even that he got traded and didn’t finish his career here, but just the drama up to the point. This whole situation became toxic and the fact that there was drama in the first place made everything feel less fun and enjoyable.

If they were to peacefully move on from him with both agreeing that it’d be best for both parties, that would’ve felt a lot different. That would be the team recognizing that the best interests of the player and the team may not align, and simply making sure that you take care of a player. Had this exact trade happened at the start of the season, the ending to the era would be so much better.

With all that said, though, regardless of how it has ended, the Butler era was 100% the best experience I had as a sports fan. I have never witnessed a more successful run than this.

I wasn’t following basketball during the Big Three era, so I didn’t experience what winning it all was like. I started following the Heat somewhat in the 2014-15 season — the season they missed the playoffs. The only winning I saw live was a first-round win against the Charlotte Hornets. The best and most fun season I watched was the 30-11 run. And then back to a mediocre team that lost to the Philadelphia 76ers in the first round and another lottery appearance.

That was my welcome to basketball in general and the Heat fandom. My highlights as a fan were Dwyane Wade versus the purple man, Hassan Whiteside's emergence, Dion Waiters’ hot streak, and those multiple game-winners in a week, and hopefully a young stars in the making in Josh Richardson and Justise Winslow.

That’s why this next five-year stretch was legitimately the best in terms of highlights, the positives, and winning(even if it only ended in a finals appearance).

Of course, it wasn’t all down to Butler, but he certainly was a bigger reason than anyone else. And honestly, for that, nothing that transpired in the last few weeks changed any view of Butler. How he exited the team makes no difference to me. The man saved me from having to pretend that Josh Richardson would’ve taken that same leap.

And because of that, here’s a Jimmy Butler appreciation post. No analysis, just fun and thoughts purely from a fan experience.

Let’s start right from the beginning. The 2019-20 season was the first season that I was following a lot more, especially come playoff time. Right from the start, most non-Heat fans didn't receive the whole buzz around Butler coming to Miami.

I remember some segment that went viral about him coming to retire in Miami as they will just end up being in the lottery. That already made the season fun going into the season with most of the narrative being that the Heat weren’t going to do anything, especially with the Heat starting the season the way they did.

It was also the fact that Butler’s career went the way it did so far that made it more enjoyable. He gave the narrative of us against the world. He was seen as cancer in Chicago and Minnesota but the Heat welcomed him still and you can feel the energy and the vibe that it fit with the team.

The first immediate memory that popped into my head was the altercation with TJ Warren. The hard foul, the taunting, the blowing kisses, and the interview where he just bluntly said he wasn’t in his league.

We had our villain and it was fun.

Right away, not even talking about basketball play but just the vibe that he brought to the team was so good.

But once the playoff came around, man, that was different. That whole bubble run was the best experience I’ve had as a fan. It was for sure a team effort and that was a big part with everyone playing the role that got them to the finals.

This is where Playoff Jimmy came from. Being such underdogs starting in the off-season, throughout the season, and entering the playoffs. I looked over the predictions from many outlets, outside of the Pacers series it was seen as an easy win, but every other series was overwhelmingly in favor of the opponent.

The big moments against the Bucks. The foul to tie the game. Dropping 40 in the first game. Now, admittedly, looking at the box score of some of the games, it was carried by singular moments. The highs were simply so high that it really stuck with me from that time.

That is until the finals, which had probably two of the best I’ve seen in basketball, period. I’ve seen LeBron James, Stephen Curry, Kevin Durant, Nikola Jokic, and Luka Doncic play now and, given every other context, the two finals wins still come up at the top.

Those games are so ingrained in my memories. That moment with him being absolutely gassed and having to lean over to take a breath is up there as one of my favorites.

And being a fan in Europe, it also means a non-existent sleep schedule, which also adds to the experience for me. The games were almost every other day with a bit of a break in between series, but that meant almost every other day for around a month, I had no regular sleep. The run was so deep, that it flipped my schedule upside down. It was going to sleep at 6 am.

It was all worth it, though. He had such performances that made being a zombie throughout the weeks during the day worth it.

His first season gave me the best season I’ve seen with my own eyes. That set a high bar and somehow he topped it multiple times. I thought the bubble run was special, he also gave us the 2022 run, which was probably more impressive basketball-wise and had moments just as high.

The circumstances were different. This wasn’t an underdog story anymore. This was a dominant team led by Butler that had a legitimate chance at a title. In his third year with the Heat, he’s already given me a season where I truly believed they had a shot. Many fanbases have not experienced that yet — I thought a win over the Hornets was big.

And it was that game six against the Celtics that topped it all that run. 47 points in a must-win game on the road, including 17 in the fourth playing pretty much the entirety of it. He had me in shock. I was on a call to a friend at that time, too and I was just randomly shouting with excitement in the middle of the night.

I will not forget the joy and the thrill of singing Pepas after the game.

At this point, I have watched Butler do some incredible things. I’ve seen him go toe-to-toe with LeBron and get the best of him. I’ve seen him take down teams he likely shouldn’t have beaten. I don’t know if I expected anything better than that.

Heading into the 2023 playoffs, I was getting ready for a quick series end so that I could do other things. I wasn’t expecting yet another deep playoff run, especially considering they were the eighth seed.

Butler said bet and gave all of us one of the best Cinderella runs in basketball and what better way to do that than giving us one of the best series ever?

The man averaged 37 on 60% shooting. The amount of moments from that series gives me chills. Nothing. NOTHING in my time as a fan comes close to that 56-point game. There was just no better feeling than what happened then. I will randomly go about thinking “BUTLER, LONG SHOT, GOOOD!”

That whole series was out of this world and he made it possible.

That’s what Butler gave me. Five full years filled with memories that just won’t be forgotten as a fan. Since also doing content around basketball as a job, what he also did was make that irrelevant. There was no need to analyze anything or look at things from different angles. He made it an experience just watching fun, enjoyable, and amazing basketball. It was nostalgic, in a way, too, feeling as if I was still the kid that got into basketball in the first place.

And because of how much I am involved in basketball, both consuming, creating, and playing, it just poured more fuel onto that love for basketball.

I can’t imagine now if this era didn’t happen the way it did. I don’t care that it didn’t end in a championship or that it ended badly. He still gave me three separate years of basketball that you couldn’t miss.

At very different points in my life, he gave me something new to experience. I was just heading into university for the first time when he arrived. I witnessed greatness in the finals in my second year. Then the 2022 run in my final year and the best individual series post-university. When I think about it in that way, it feels like a long, long time.

And it was a long period of success filled with chilling, thrilling, and unforgettable moments.

You obviously want to experience winning as a fan. I can’t imagine watching a team that struggles to even tough a playoff series win for such a long consecutive time. Seeing as my fandom has only reached around 10 years, it made being a fan of basketball a hell lot more fun.

So, it doesn’t matter if they never came close to winning. It doesn’t matter that Pat Riley didn’t make the necessary moves to go all in. It doesn’t matter how bad some of those seasons were and ended. I probably felt different at the moment, but the highs 100% outweigh any negative or disappointment.

For that, I appreciate the entire Jimmy Butler has been here, regardless of how it ended.