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The Philadelphia 76ers fell to the Miami Heat in Game 6 of their Eastern Conference Semifinals series, knocking them out of the 2022 NBA Playoffs. Now, Jimmy Butler and Miami are moving on in the postseason tournament, while the Sixers are heading into the offseason.
The loss was specifically difficult for Philadelphia, because things could have been completely different if the Sixers stuck with Butler a few years back. In 2019, the team refused to pay the small forward, sending him to Miami via a sign and trade.
Just a few years later, Butler proved to the Philadelphia franchise why they shouldn't have let him go. He put up ridiculous numbers, averaging 27.5 points, 7.3 rebounds, and 5.5 assists in the series.
All of this could have been avoided if the Sixers listened to Butler's agent, Bernie Lee. According to Yaron Weitzman of Fox Sports, Lee told Josh Harris that he was making a big mistake.
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10. Lee told Harris he was breaking up a championship team, that he was putting Simmons in a position to fail and that he’d end up having to trade him and that he was wasting years of Embiid’s prime.
— Yaron Weitzman (@YaronWeitzman) May 13, 2022
Lee allegedly told the Sixers businessman that letting Butler go was wrong for multiple reasons. Not only were they destroying a championship-caliber team, but they were putting their remaining players, Joel Embiid and Ben Simmons, in bad positions.
It's easy to look back now and say that the Sixers made a huge mistake keeping Simmons and giving up Butler. However, in 2019, nobody could have predicted what happened between Simmons and Philadelphia and the juxtaposing success of Butler in Miami. One thing's for sure; Embiid and Butler wish things went differently in 2019.
