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00:00If I can just give you the numbers of Butler against his own team, the 2017-2018 year,
00:07he went to Chicago, he put up 38, and 7 boards, 5 dimes, in a loss at Chicago, 114-113, but
00:16he had 38.
00:18The next year, he was on Philadelphia, because he got traded mid-year by Minnesota, so Philadelphia
00:24at Minnesota late in the year, he had just 12 points on 4 of 17 in his return to Minnesota.
00:32They won the game, but he did have 13 rebounds, he had 12 points in a victory for Philadelphia.
00:39And then you had the game where it was Miami, and he went to, I guess Philadelphia would
00:46have been the revenge game that year, and he didn't play very well, I'm looking for
00:53here, yes here it is, 14 points on 5 of 11, 7 rebounds, they did win the game, 108-104,
01:00so 2-1 in victories, one really good game, two kind of okay games.
01:06Again, I'm not an expert on some of the other departures, this does feel a little different,
01:12this feels like a bigger deal, you know, he wasn't in Philly for that long, and the departures
01:19at some of the other places, some are a little bit more contentious than others.
01:24This one feels like there was a long, drawn-out, hey bleep you, no bleep you, right, this is
01:33Butler v. Riley, and it became a very, very big thing, and also, the team he joins, very
01:41high-profile team, lots of winning, not only before he arrived, but also since he's arrived,
01:48and so, this one feels maybe more ratcheted up than those other ones you just referenced.
01:54Fair, definitely fair, I do think that the Minnesota departure was as acrimonious as
01:59it gets, the Philly one, he was only there for a little bit, and one thing I learned
02:03from the Slater piece is Jimmy Butler was quoted as saying, I couldn't talk to these
02:07guys, and I looked at that roster on Philly that year, Joe Ellenbead in his second year,
02:13Markel Fultz was on that team, and just a whole bunch of maybe enigmatic players, and
02:20so Jimmy comes into Philadelphia trying to get things rolling, and Ellenbead, I think,
02:25will go down as one of the most curious players for me.
02:28This is just a weird experience, isn't it?
02:30It's just a weird experience.
02:32He's so supremely talented, but he's so oft-injured, and he doesn't really have that dog in him,
02:39and he seems to come up small in big moments, but he is so unbelievably good.
02:44But it also feels like there are moments at press conferences where, like, when the rubber
02:48really meets the road, he'll sell that teammate out.
02:54And sometimes, I'm not exactly sure what Joel means when he speaks, but it feels like that
03:00has happened sometimes, whether it's Harden, whether it's Butler.
03:04I guess this is the other piece to it, those other places that you mentioned, Butler didn't
03:08achieve nearly as much there as he did in Miami, and so he was probably more, I think
03:14in Chicago he was definitely beloved, because that's where he started, but very beloved
03:19in Miami, like he had a real footprint on a team in the NBA at a spot that was his,
03:26and so when you're that guy for an extended period of time, the love affair that the fanbase
03:31has with you is intense, and then when it falls apart, then everyone has to pick sides,
03:37and it gets very, very difficult.
03:39And so I don't know that that has been mimicked, certainly not in Philadelphia, even in Minnesota.
03:45Not in Minnesota.
03:46It all just fell apart too quickly, and they didn't achieve anything.
03:48And in Chicago, it was a young team, he was a young player, and it was kind of Derek Rose's
03:53team early on, and he did go to the playoffs four of his first five years, and then bounced
03:58around to Philly and Minnesota, and then Miami, I'm just looking, 64 playoff games in four
04:04seasons.
04:0564.
04:06Damn.
04:07That's a lot.
04:08I mean, the first year, you go to the finals, and then one series and out, and then you
04:12played 17 games, and then 22 games.
04:15Yeah, you're looking at north of, quick math, how many, you said 64 in four seasons?
04:20That's over 15 a year.
04:22That's exactly 16 a year.
04:24And that tells me that you're winning, like you won three series, you didn't win a series,
04:29you won two series, you won three series.
04:31That's a lot of series wins.
04:32Yeah, you're getting to the playoffs and maneuvering.
04:34And going deep.
04:35Yeah.
04:36It's an eight seed, out of the play-in.
04:37And so yeah, definitely the level of being beloved, that's why tonight I'm fascinated
04:41to see the three-tiered reaction, the fans, his opposing players, and we won't see like
04:50the front office, or maybe we'll see Coach Spoh post-game.
04:53Do they dap it up?
04:54I don't know.
04:55His former coach and Jimmy, I'm interested to see all of that.
04:59I doubt Pat Riley will come out of wherever he watches the game and like, let's bring
05:03it in.
05:04That, I doubt.
05:05I doubt.
05:06I wonder the fans though, if you're a fan, can you really boo Jimmy Butler?
05:10You can.
05:11You're allowed to?
05:12Yeah.
05:13I get it.
05:14I mean, they've got alcohol there.
05:15Right.
05:16I mean, that's where it comes, right?
05:17Go get liquored up and boo.
05:18Like that's what some...
05:19Sure.
05:20I promise.
05:21But remember Oklahoma City and Kevin Durant?
05:22Well, that is different.
05:23And all the cupcake shirts and all the rest of it?
05:25That was different because I don't think that had anything to do with money, right?
05:31Oklahoma City was absolutely willing to pay Kevin Durant.
05:36And I also think that that was one of those where Thunder fans never really bought the
05:41idea that Kevin was going to leave.
05:44And then it felt like he just did it in the middle of the night.
05:48You know what I mean?
05:49Like there's different kinds of transactions, like take the Luca trade from Dallas a few
05:58weeks ago.
05:59Saturday night, like everybody just did what they did with their day or they're out or
06:04they're at bars or they're at restaurants or whatever and people's phones start going
06:09crazy and they're like, this is fake.
06:11And then next thing you know, it's like, wait, it's not fake.
06:15This just happened with no buildup.
06:17And on a Saturday night late, I mean, if you're on the East Coast, it was late.
06:22So when these things happen in the cover of darkness, I think they hit a little bit harder.
06:28So Oklahoma City fans were really, really emotionally broken by what took place.
06:36I don't know that a Miami fan was emotionally broken here.
06:39You might have been taken on a ride for a few months that bothered you and you may have
06:44taken sides, but good Lord, it's not like nobody saw the Jimmy Butler trade coming.
06:49Everybody saw it coming.
06:50Of course.
06:51For a year.
06:52Right.
06:53And I don't think Luca has been back to Dallas yet.
06:55Has he?
06:56In a return game?
06:57I don't know.
06:58He played the Mavs.
06:59The Lakers.
07:00It was in LA.
07:01In LA.
07:02It was in LA though.
07:03It was in LA.
07:04And again, if you're a Dallas fan, I don't know how you can feel enraged toward Luca
07:08because Luca got dealt.
07:09No, no, no, no.
07:10Yeah.
07:11You're mad at the GM.
07:12And the whole thing about KD that I had forgotten is that Russell Westbrook was the one who
07:15called him a cupcake, which is why all the OKC fans embrace the idea of KD and the cupcake.
07:22And so that was fueled by another player.
07:25I don't think that Miami players have come out and, you know, railed against Jimmy Butler
07:29for knowing what he did.
07:30No, they've at least publicly had his back.
07:32I'm sure they've all got their feelings.
07:33No doubt.
07:34You know, and some of them actually probably have their feelings in the other direction.
07:39I mean, they are players.
07:42They're players.
07:43So why would they not like every player I've ever known when another player is like trying
07:47to get his, you know how they react to that, to like, that's his business.
07:53And we support him getting his because if he gets his, then we get ours.
07:58That's how most players look at it.
07:59I guarantee you some of those Heat players are probably not keen on how Pat Riley handled
08:04Jimmy Butler.
08:05That'd be my guess.
08:06I don't know.
08:07I haven't talked to any of them.
08:08Yeah.
08:09That'd be my guess.
08:10Well, and the Heat culture is a thing, I'm told.
08:12And so Jimmy Butler comes to warrior culture, which as we heard from Steve Curry yesterday,
08:19the culture is Steph Curry.
08:21And Steph Curry, as Jimmy said in the piece by Anthony Slater in The Athletic, Steph Curry
08:26is about the nicest human being he's ever met.
08:29He's a ferocious competitor.
08:30But the warrior culture is, do you do what you need to do, be here on time and fight
08:36like heck to win.
08:38And if that's the culture and you're Jimmy Butler at 35, you're probably loving that.
08:43Let's go out to the phones, 888-957-957.
08:46It's Willard and Dibbs.
08:47This is the day we've been waiting for.
08:48Jimmy Buckets is back in Miami.
08:50The game is right here in less than two hours, of course.
08:53Warriors Live is starting in 45 minutes.
08:55We're going to take you all the way up to the Andrew Wiggins revenge game that is about
09:00to unfold tonight on 95.7 The Game.
09:03Let's go to Leo on 880.
09:04Hi, Leo.
09:05Thank you for the call.
09:06Hey, thank you for taking my call.
09:10You know, I don't know if you remember when Jimmy Butler was in the bubble in his hotel
09:15room, the people below him called hotel security because the guy was bouncing a basketball
09:20for four hours over their head.
09:22And security, hotel security came and found this guy drenched in sweat.
09:27But he's an intense guy.
09:29So I think a lot of the I mean, I think we all kind of agree, like one of the things
09:35that he wins on is his intensity.
09:37So things like not being on a team bus and not being on an airplane, he just may need
09:42that to fulfill his potential like that.
09:46That gives him his edge.
09:48There was a great Madden quote and when Madden said, look, I don't care if a guy comes down
09:52to lunch in a jockstrap and nothing else.
09:55I don't want him to jump off sides in the game.
09:58It's what he does in the game.
10:00And I think Pat Riley in the heat just probably couldn't understand that.
10:04But I think the Warriors are going to be a perfect place to understand it.
10:07He's driven like his and I hate to use that word, his superpower or whatever, but it's
10:13probably his intensity.
10:15If he has people around him talking, you know, he has to do what he has to do.
10:21Leo, I think it's a great topic that you bring it up here.
10:25Thank you very much for the call.
10:26This is where I think the Butler thing gets really interesting.
10:29And there is a generational quality to this argument.
10:34Pat Riley is 80 years old, so I'm not here to say that Pat Riley is doing anything wrong.
10:39I do think Pat Riley does things the way they used to be done and they're largely not done
10:44that way anymore. It doesn't make them wrong.
10:47This is the most relatable thing on earth.
10:49We all experience this.
10:52If you have kids or or if your parents are still with us or whatever the case may be,
10:58generations have a hard time understanding the next generation and how they do things.
11:04And I think the Warriors in the heat are really great examples of this because the
11:08Warriors have stepped into their own Bay Area culture.
11:12They've rebranded themselves through this Steph Curry generation.
11:16They have their own arena, their new place, and they have their way of doing things.
11:21And it is a much more modern way of doing things, which is here's what matters to us.
11:26And if you execute those things, then outside of that, you can do whatever the hell you
11:31want. Meantime, Pat Riley is over here going.
11:35You're going to do every single damn thing I say.
11:42And only because he's the great Pat Riley does that sometimes work.
11:47I'd argue that the way Pat Riley tries to do it, if you try to do that in 2025 with
11:53young people, it largely doesn't work anymore.
11:56It just doesn't work anymore.
11:57It doesn't make it wrong.
11:59It's just evolution.
12:02That's and so that's why I do think that that Butler is is vibing right now.
12:09But I also believe that this this may last.
12:13Well, you can do it, I think, with twenty three and twenty four year olds more than
12:17you can with a thirty five year old.
12:19And, you know, Jimmy Butler's been around.
12:22He's been doing it. Now he's got a family and he's got all these things and he's got a
12:25resume and gravitas.
12:27And so when you have that same sort of old school my way or the highway mentality.
12:32Yeah. An older player, a more veteran guy probably will push back, especially when
12:37you're Jimmy Butler, a guy who is headstrong and unique and all the descriptions we've
12:42had of Jimmy Butler.
12:43And, you know, Pat Riley's book, The Winner Within, is older than almost every person
12:49on the Warriors roster, his book, let alone his run with the Lakers, which is I mean,
12:55it's older than even Stefan Draymond and those guys that happened 40 years ago.
12:59So Pat Riley's done it one way.
13:02And I will tip the cap for Greg Popovich.
13:04I don't know him personally, but it feels like he has adapted a little bit with the
13:09times and with younger players and kind of the new way, because he's also from the old
13:15school. Well, you know who's popping into my mind is Belichick.
13:19Like, I can't wait to see how this plays out at North Carolina going to college.
13:24And he's out here like doing yoga poses on the beach with his 20 something year old
13:28girlfriend or whatever.
13:30And these are all things he's become a media star.
13:33These are all things that most sports fans five years ago would have been like, what?
13:37Right. If I had laid this out for you five years ago, Belichick is going to be a daily
13:42star on media.
13:44He's going to coach in college.
13:45He's got a young girlfriend.
13:47They're going to be on the beach doing poses and selfies together.
13:50You know, what the hell are you talking about?
13:52But whether that's we never really knew Bill or it's the evolution of Bill or maybe
13:59some of both, which is probably true, it's both.
14:01Yeah, that is.
14:03I do think that's a compliment.
14:04That's a compliment when you can do that, because if you can't do that, I think it's
14:10I think it's pretty hard to run organizations to do them one way and to do that for
14:15however long Pat Riley's been doing it, like 40 years now.
14:19It's pretty tough.
14:20And like you brought up, like, how will Eric Spolster interact with Jimmy Butler?
14:24There are times where I look at this whole thing and I'm like, Spoh is just a pawn
14:28here. He's a character in all this.
14:30I don't think he's the coach.
14:32I think he wants his best player out there and he probably doesn't hate him, but he's
14:36very much always had to do things that Pat Riley wants him to do.
14:40And I just that's just a vibe for me.
14:42I got the sense that that's what Spoh was doing throughout this entire process.
14:47I don't think he hated Jimmy, but he had to execute the organizational directive, if
14:53you will. Sure.
14:54And I wonder how much of it he also believes he's been doing it for so long that
14:58there's got to be a lot of what he does that is tied into how Pat Riley's been
15:02running things. If you're that unhappy as Eric Spolster, you could get another job in
15:07the NBA or in college pretty easily.
15:10And I think about what you're saying, new school, old school in terms of the NIL now
15:15in college, where because athletes can go out and make their own money and athletes
15:19can enter the portal and leave you, if you are doing things that maybe are a little
15:24bit too old school and a little bit too strict, if you're a good athlete, you could
15:28just up and leave now.
15:29And that's I mean, it's great for the athletes and it also defangs the coaches a
15:33little bit. Yeah. I mean, you were saying that that you kind of buy in and I've heard
15:37this for a few places, that that idea, that NIL thing has probably killed the mid
15:45major tournament run.
15:48I don't know if I buy that yet.
15:49I know that that kind of became a thing this year.
15:52Right. We'll see if that plays out over time.
15:57But I don't know, man, like, yeah, I think it just makes it harder.
16:01And you look at Florida Atlantic two years ago, which no one had ever heard of.
16:05And they made it to the final four and four of their five starters left.
16:09And those four starters who left are all in the sweet 16 on other schools.
16:13So you could do like a one off run.
16:16And this year there was Drake that I liked and McNeese and forget Liberty.
16:21I should never run to that school again.
16:22They got absolutely pounded by Oregon.
16:25But even your plucky little Cinderella efforts, you could win one game, you might win
16:31two. And if you win three, well, good for you.
16:34But if you do win three and those players get high profile, they're probably going to
16:38leave for that big money elsewhere.
16:40Well, yeah, I mean, even the upsets that happened.
16:43I mean, are you telling me that our Cinderella is named Arkansas and coached by John
16:48Calipari? Right.
16:49That doesn't sound like that doesn't sound like Cinderella to me.
16:53And it's a team that's been deep in the tourney the last few years and won a national
16:57championship within the last 20, 25 years ago, a little bit more than that.
17:02I mean, we're going back to Corliss Williamson, right?
17:04Oh, no, Nolan.
17:06Yeah. Nolan Richardson.
17:07Yeah. Yeah.
17:07Forty minutes a minute to hell.
17:09Boy, what year was that?
17:10I'm going to say ninety five in the 90s.
17:13Yeah, actually, I have it right in front of me because I was thinking about something we
17:18could do Thursday that would be fun because we're going to be a chase.
17:21I thought it'd be fun if we could get an alum, a basketball alum from the four schools who
17:26are going to be participating in chase and either do like dual head to head interviews
17:32or do like something like fans or players, players like, for example, Maryland is taking
17:38on Arkansas.
17:40OK, so I'm going to get Joe Smith to scream at somebody.
17:43David Lee.
17:44OK, Joe Smith, it's Florida that they're taking on.
17:47Lucas, we booked that.
17:49Oh, OK.
17:49I was going to send a text.
17:51The little Joe Kim, Noah.
17:52Yeah, well, I thought Joe Smith, because he's a former warrior and David Lee, former warrior.
17:56OK, it's Maryland, Florida.
17:58So I thought that that would be fun.
17:59And I just actually was looking for Arkansas alum.
18:02I think Moses Moody might be busy.
18:05I hope so.
18:05Don't although they don't play.
18:07They don't play that night.
18:07We could get I mean, Moses would be fun to have a travel day.
18:10Got to leave Miami, go to New Orleans.
18:12Yeah, good point.
18:13NCAA champion.
18:14Nineteen ninety four for Corliss Williams.
18:17Thirty one years ago.
18:20That made me feel old.
18:21But I thought that'd be fun if we could do like you could figure it out.
18:24If you can find these people,
18:26maybe I'll make it a little pet project Arkansas against Texas Tech.
18:29Yeah, Cordis Williamson.
18:31And go ahead.
18:32Name Texas Tech.
18:33I have to Google it.
18:34Exactly.