NBA Finals: The winners and losers from the bubble championship
By Sean Carroll
Winner: Jimmy Butler
This is the fourth team Jimmy Butler has played for in his NBA career after either requesting trades out of his past teams or agreeing to be traded in the case of Philadelphia.
For the people who are fighting in Jimmy’s corner, it was becoming harder and harder to say it’s not his fault, to say it was the three other franchises fault Jimmy wasn’t happy, not the one constant.
That’s old news.
Jimmy was the alpha on an overachieving team whose strongest element is arguably their chemistry. He pushed along the young players like Kendrick Nunn, Tyler Herro, and Duncan Robinson, he took a back seat in scoring to different players across a number of playoff series and even squeezed out two wins in the Finals against LeBron James.
This was highlighted in Game 5 when Jimmy played all but 48 seconds in the game. He was the primary defender on LeBron and the focal point of the offense.
His final box score read 35 points, 11 assists, and 12 rebounds with five steals on 58-33-100 shooting splits.
On top of that, we got a photo for the ages when an exhausted Jimmy leant against the sideline screen after drawing two crucial free throws late in the game.