Today is February 6. The Golden State Warriors have played exactly 50 of their 82 games for the 2024-25 regular season. Their record is 25-25. They started the season 12-3, and have proceeded to go 13-22. If the NBA playoffs began today, the Warriors would miss them entirely.
Last night, two things happened:
The Warriors played in Salt Lake City against the Utah Jazz, the second-worst team in the NBA. The Warriors led by 11 with three minutes to go. They lost by 3.1
Shortly before the game, the Warriors traded away Andrew Wiggins, Dennis Schroder, Kyle Anderson, and Lindy Waters IV, along with this year’s draft pick. They received Jimmy Butler in return and immediately signed him to a 2-year contract.
Inherited Wil is not a basketball blog. I know I’ve posted about basketball twice this week, but it’s really not! Just happens to be a juicy week, and I’d rather talk basketball news than Trump news.
Accordingly, I’m not going to waste time dispensing my opinion on whether this was a good trade.2 To be honest, it doesn’t realy matter to me whether or not the trade was good, because Jimmy Butler is my favorite non-Curry guy in the NBA.3 The idea that I’m going to get to see him and Curry share the floor is revolutionary.
The rest of this post serves one purpose only: to convey a sense of the angst, majesty, and bite-your-face-off loyalty that defines the Jimmy Butler experience.
Jimmy was drafted to the Bulls in 2011, an unlikely ending to a tough childhood; he was homeless as he finished out high school in Texas and had to play at a local Junior College so that he could transfer up to Marquette. Just as no one recruited him out of high school, no one had high expectations for him coming out of college.
In 2017, the Minnesota Timberwolves traded for Jimmy - they believed that his dogged work ethic and unrelenting competitive spirit were needed on a roster of young guys trying to figure out how to win games. Things worked out for a bit… then things imploded, culminating in one of the funniest stories in recent NBA history - a practice where Butler teamed up with the benchwarmers to beat the other starters while screaming that they couldn’t win without him. See the two videos below for some stylized re-tellings.
After the infamous practice in 2018, Jimmy is traded to Philadelphia. They win some games, but the team allegedly disrespected him during contract negotiations, so he heads to Miami. Apparently, he took their personnel decisions very personally (see the next clip, taken after he beat his old team in the playoffs years later).
I found out about all of the above later. I found out about Jimmy Butler in 2020, during the NBA’s COVID “bubble”. Jimmy carried the Miami Heat within 2 games of a title. This picture is from after their Game 3 victory, in which he played every single minute and scored more than a third of his team’s points. Reading about Jimmy’s 4 am workouts inspired me to start running again. At a time when the world seemed to be at a standstill, the passion he brought to the game sucked me into the NBA.
The Heat wouldn’t make it back to the Finals over the next few years, but Jimmy proved to be a surprisingly charismatic guy. In 2022, he wore fake dreads for his NBA headshot, which is used throughout the year (even after he reverted his style). In 2024, he upped the ante and went emo. Jimmy has started an overpriced coffee company, hangs out with country music stars, and generally seems to kind of do his own thing. Which is why 2023 was so special:
After upsetting the Milwaukee Bucks through truly sublime play, the Heat seemed to be running out of steam, squeaking by the New York Knicks. No one gave him and his team a chance against the Boston Celtics… and then - Jimmy got pissed and had some crazy games. Miami won 3 in a row, then lost 3 in a row, just to get the hopes up for my fellow Bostonians. Jimmy and his team blew Boston out in the decisive game 7 before failing in the Finals again.
In the Fall of 2024, Jimmy decided that he couldn’t get along with his team. He demanded a trade, the Heat suspended him, things got hairy on social media, and the Heat finally acquiesced last night. On three different teams, Jimmy has had a honeymoon period filled with wins, apparently lost motivation over time, and, ultimately, forced his way out. But this time will be different! Right???
If you’re curious, my opinion is that it really depends. We did not part with an incredibly amount of value, although Wiggins has been playing well this year. If Jimmy has a good season and a half left in him, and the Warriors actually win the games they’re supposed to win, it’ll have been worth it. This wasn’t just about a straight exchange of value; the team was getting stale and needed to help Curry, and they took an appropriate risk. Only time will tell who “won” the trade.
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Also, what a strong start just to flop into a completely even record. Let’s see how the last 32 games go for the Warriors.