As a Heat fan, in a vacuum, I think Jimmy Butler is the perfect fit for the Heat culture. BUT with that being said, he’s a max player and naturally the expectations that come with such are different. Ive been adamant all year that this Heat team is good enough to win it all except Jimmy Butler isn’t quite good enough on the offensive end to be the go-to guy when the role players that the Heat have counted on all year aren’t playing well. So, for sake of discussion, my questions are simply the following:
1) Is there another max player in the league that could be the 4th leading scorer on his own team in the conference finals and still be immune to any criticism?
2) Is there another max player and unquestioned leader of his squad in the league that feels like he’s just “one of the guys”? I don’t feel like Jimmy is significantly better than the other main contributors on the Heat on the offensive end. It makes Spo’s job infinitely harder because Jimmy; and even Bam (he’s still young and developing so I give him a pass), aren’t the type of “best players on the team” that will overwhelm you offensively so it’s a lot of just feeding the hot hand. But when that hot hand can he one of 6 guys because your best player(s) aren’t the type of player you can give the ball to and he can consistently get you buckets in one-on-one, it makes it that much harder when the role players aren’t playing well.
HEAT WERE A LOTTERY TEAM LAST SEASON.
