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Jimmy Butler has the worst luck in recent NBA history. He was called up to reigning MVP Derrick Rose’s team, but Rose’s frequent injuries prevented him from truly competing for championships with the Chicago Bulls. He was traded to another MVP’s team, but the Philadelphia 76ers deprived him of the chance to spend his best time with Joel Embiid by letting him leave on free duty instead so they could sign Al Horford.
As a member of the Miami Heat, he’s come pretty close to winning it all twice. His 2020 title hopes were dashed when Bam Adebayo and Goran Dragic were injured in Game 1 of the Finals against the Los Angeles Lakers. Last season, he was one shot away from reaching the NBA Finals on a team whose injury record included five key players going into Game 7 against the Boston Celtics.
History tends to remember destinations rather than journeys. Players like Charles Barkley, Patrick Ewing and John Stockton are lumped together. For now, Butler is technically staying there. But criticizing him for not having a championship does the postseason giant killer he’s become a complete disservice. Butler may never have finished the season hoisting the championship trophy, but he’s the player those who reach that top most want to avoid on their way there.
He is simply the most dangerous underdog in NBA history. Just take a look at his resume:
- Butler has appeared in 13 series where his team was the lowest seed. His team has won six. That’s a win rate of 46%. Since Butler became a full-time starter in 2014, lower seeds have a series record of 33-102. That’s a win rate of about 24%.
- Butler has a 19-25 road record in the postseason, which translates to about a 43% win rate. Road teams as a whole won 35% of their playoff games between 1984 and 2020.
- Only one No. 5 seed has reached the NBA Finals: the 2020 Heat, led by Butler. They are the second lowest overall to reach the Finals, behind the No. 6 seeded 1995 Houston Rockets.
- Only five No. 8 seeds have ever beaten a No. 1 seed. Butler’s 2023 Heat became fifth on Wednesday when they defeated the Milwaukee Bucks.
- And while the NBA’s play-in round has been around for a few seasons, no play-in team had ever won a playoff series until Butler’s Heat.
The individual performances are just as stunning. In only his second overall season and first in the rotation, he played 48 minutes in three of Chicago’s five games against the Miami Heat in the second round. Chicago may have lost that streak, but Butler kept James at his all-time high to just 23.6 points a game. Even Kawhi Leonard never matched that feat. He faced James again in the 2020 NBA Finals without Dragic and Adebayo. In Miami’s two victories, he posted a 40-point triple-double and a 35-point triple-double.
Butler may have had home-court advantage against the Boston Celtics last postseason, but even as the No. 1 seed, the Heat were plus-145 underdogs entering that series. In Game 6, Tyler Herro, Kyle Lowry, Max Strus, PJ Tucker and Gabe Vincent were all on the injury report. Butler himself missed the end of Game 3 due to an injury. It didn’t matter. He scored 47 points to win Game 6 and 35 to almost steal Game 7. Boston should have known how dangerous Butler was. Just five years earlier, he led the Bulls to a 2–0 lead over No. 8 Boston in the first round. He didn’t complete that upset, but he did end the Bucks this time.
The Heat overcame double-digit deficits in the fourth quarter to win both Game 4 and Game 5. Butler scored 98 combined points in those two games. He scored 14 points in the fourth quarter of both games. It wasn’t even the first time Butler beat the Milwaukee Bucks as a No. 1 seed. They did so in 2020, making Butler responsible for half of Milwaukee’s postseason losses under Mike Budenholzer. Combine the end of the Boston series with the five games Butler just played against the Bucks and he averages 38.5 points over his last seven playoff games.
Butler has had his way with Antetokounmpo’s Bucks, but Butler would trade all that for a championship ring. Such jewelry is usually distributed indirectly. The Bucks won their championship at least in part because they stayed healthy in a series that James Harden and Kyrie Irving failed to do. Butler has been on very few championship-level teams. Most of them succumbed to injuries. He’s still talking nonsense to whoever let him go.
The stars may never align for Butler in the postseason. They didn’t do that for Barkley, Ewing or Stockton. Still, it doesn’t feel quite right to group him like that, great as they once were. He has developed a playoff identity all his own. He is one of a kind, a player who robs others of championships despite never winning his own. A legendary underdog.
That’s something fitting given his path to NBA stardom. Butler was so lightly recruited from high school that he had to spend his freshman year at Tyler Junior College. He fell to the very last pick of the first round in the 2011 NBA Draft. The Bulls would not meet his contract requirements after his third season, so he played a maximum deal during his fourth season. They traded him to avoid paying him a super-max deal two years later and he’s been haunting them ever since. Butler has been an underdog throughout his basketball career. It therefore seems appropriate that he has become the most dangerous playoff underdog in NBA history. It may not mean as much as winning a championship, but it’s a worthy legacy for a player who has fallen short in the postseason.
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