You start here with Jimmy Butler: He is an acquired taste.
For some, such as Fred Hoiberg, Rajon Rondo, Karl-Anthony Towns and Ben Simmons, among others, it is one that hardly is palatable.
That is among the reasons that, 10 years in, there already have been four teams.
To others, including most (if not all) of the current Miami Heat roster, as well as the coaching staff and front office, the Butler experience has been easier to digest.
That, of course, matters at times such as this, with the 31-year-old forward within weeks of requesting a four-year, $181 million extension.
And it matters because of the prickliness of the personality, which again drew inspection in reflection this past week.
This time, it was the ESPN feature on former Heat forward Jae Crowder that chronicled a volatile practice moment between the two amid a post-practice one-on-one game during last season’s Disney World quarantine bubble:
“The trash talk became so profane, and so personal, it was borderline uncomfortable, team sources said. Almost the entire Heat contingent stayed to watch. ‘I’ve been busting your a-- since school!’ Butler taunted, according to Crowder. (It got much worse than that.) Everyone loved it — and appreciated Crowder for bringing an edge to practices. (Butler won the final game.)”
Before that, it was a report during the playoffs of “testy moments” between Butler and the coaching staff at times this season.
Heat President Pat Riley defused that talk during an appearance on a Dan Le Batard podcast, when he said, “Whatever rumors are out there about Jimmy Butler and anybody else who might have a problem with me or with Erik [Spoelstra] or with the team, it’s normal.”
Which brings us to former Heat forward Chris Bosh and his ongoing book tour, as he promotes, “Letters to a Young Athlete.”
During a recent conversation with the Sun Sentinel, Bosh laughed about the notion of Butler somehow standing as unique in upping the thermostat in the Heat workplace.
“During those Big Three years, sure there was conflict,” he said of his championship Heat run alongside Dwyane Wade and LeBron James. “You have a bunch of guys in there wanting to win, a coach saying, ‘We’re going do to this today,’ and the players saying, ‘Well, we want to do this.’ "
Bosh paused, laughed, then reflected on a passage in his book that included leaving a game visibly annoyed at Spoelstra, hashing that matter out over breakfast the next morning, and then moving on to win that night.
“There’s always going to be conflict because everybody wants to win,” Bosh said. “But you always have to reel it back in at the end of the day, and it’s about winning the game.”
What he has seen in Butler these past two Heat seasons, Bosh said, is what he saw from Wade, James and others while advancing to four consecutive NBA Finals starting in 2011 and winning titles in 2012 and ’13.
To that end, he credited Riley for defusing the report about Butler’s “testy moments,” with the type of nuance that defused more than a few testy moments with the Big Three.
“That’s part of the growth process,” Bosh said of such tensions. “But then, at the same time, you have to understand that it does take conflict. Pat said it perfectly.”
So, yes, Jimmy Butler can be an SOB. And soon he well could be an exorbitantly paid SOB. But Bosh said it’s how you move forward.
From Crowder, after that practice-court showdown, there was the respect necessary to help push the Heat to the 2020 NBA Finals. From the Heat, as Riley said, there is sufficient respect for Butler to entertain the extension discussion. And from Bosh, there is almost a wink to how this is nothing new at 601 Biscayne Boulevard.
The next test, Bosh said, is how it plays in the void of winning, with the Heat swept out of the first round of this season’s playoffs.
“There’ll always be reports of conflict when the season isn’t that good,” Bosh said, with the 2011 and 2014 offseasons particularly difficult during his Heat tenure. “The conflict is different. When they’re winning and arguing, it’s great, it’s a great thing.
“What I find is most important, is you have to talk about it. We’re all adults, right?”
