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Thanks to his heroics for the Miami Heat over the stretch of what has been a very impressive postseason run for the team, Jimmy Butler has pretty much rewritten his image as being a “bad teammate.” This narrative peaked during Butler's time with the Minnesota Timberwolves, where he literally forced his way out of the team.
In a recent piece for The Athletic, Sam Amick reveals how an unnamed All-Star believed at that time that Butler simply did not deserve the spotlight:
As this particular player saw it, though, Butler wasn’t nearly good enough to monopolize the media attention like he was back then. There was an unmistakable annoyance in the commentary, a strong sense that Butler hadn’t accomplished nearly enough to warrant this sort of spotlight and, in essence, wasn’t worth all this trouble.
Simply put, the anonymous All-Star did not believe that Jimmy Butler had established enough of a reputation as a star to be able to act like one. To be fair, this was how the mainstream media portrayed Butler during his infamous bust-up with his teammates in Minnesota, which ultimately led to his exit.
Butler has turned everything around now, and he's pretty much proven that he was never really a “cancer” by any stretch. What he possessed was an incessant desire to win, which as it turns out, was something that his former Wolves teammates never had. The best part here is that Butler proved all this by walking the talk.
Despite his excellent play for Miami, though, the Heat are still down 2-1 in the Finals against a powerhouse Los Angeles Lakers side. They cut the deficit after a huge Game 3 win on Sunday, but there's no denying that remain to be the underdogs here.
