Welcome to this league uncut rule of twenty four hour NBA News. This's you lo Chris Haines. It's so time, Markstein, It's so time. This league uncut is underway and on fire. This should be a good one.
Hello friends, welcome to another audio dispatch solo. Mark Stein speaking to you here. Had to be done, had to get out the microphone, had to get out the recording apparatus. After what we witness Monday night, Jimmy Butler, people slamming home yet again that he is the most underrated player in the NBA, certainly the most underrated star. This is how we used to talk about Drew Holiday, but it's
Butler now underrated, underappreciated. We simply do not speak enough about how world class this guy is, what a winning player he is. Butler had twenty two points in the first quarter Monday night against Holiday's Bucks. He had twenty one in the fourth. He finished with fifty six, tying for the fourth highest scoring output ever in an NBA game. Even afterwards, though, I found myself arguing with one of the smartest basketball people I know, who shall remain nameless.
But the gist of the convo I can share that and basically it's me arguing with him that I have considered Jimmy Butler to be a top ten player in the NBA since the Bubble in Orlando. I wrote this in The New York Times in October of twenty twenty, after Jimmy Butler powered Miami to the finals, and remember they took the Lakers to six games, even though along the way injuries hampered both bam Adebayo and Goran Dragic.
My piece in the New York Times at the time it was all about how one of the lasting, most important takeaways from the Bubble had to be how Butler enhanced his reputation more than any other player in the league. To me, he had proven that he was a top ten player in this league. Still though there are so many people all over the NBA map who refused to see it that way, including the person I was arguing with after this Butler master piece. It's amazing to me
how often this kind of pushback still comes up. And let me tell you something, coaches in the Eastern Conference have proven that they are no smarter. Because this is gonna go down. This season will be recorded as the second season already in Jimmy's career, the second in which he was ridiculously snubbed from the All Star Game by
East coaches and then goes on to earn All NBA status. Now, no, I do not have a secret copy of the final official All NBA Teams, but trust me, Butler's going to be on there.
He's earning.
All NBA status this season, and again it's gonna be the second time he does so. And look, Butler would be the first to tell you his day to day personality. It's a lot for some people. That's one of Jimmy's pet phrases.
I'm a lot.
Headstrong is the polite adjective you hear. Confrontational is the adjective that gets thrown around much more frequently.
That's the one.
You know, he's a confrontational guy. We've heard that throughout Butler's career. But the Heat know how to handle it, and they're thriving with Butler as the center of their universe for the fourth successive season, and this season, at age thirty three, Butler shot a career best fifty three point seven percent from the field. He's shooting nearly sixty three percent from the floor. Against the Bucks in this series, averaging thirty six point five points a game, and Butler
more than anyone. He's the guy who has steered Miami, the number eight seed in the East, to a three to one lead entering Wednesday's pivotal.
Game five in Milwaukee.
What historically does Jimmy not do well? Apart from shooting the three. He's an elite two way player, top shelf playmaker for himself and teammates. Now, I know that was also a criticism at various points in his career that he's not he's too unselfish on offense. It doesn't look to take over games. Try tell him that to the Bucks right now, who are on the brink of their season ending. You know, Jimmy sure look pretty aggressive when
it mattered most. He just makes winning plays, gets to the line, makes his free throws fifteen for eighteen at the line in Game four, and just look at his time with the Heat. They made the finals in the Bubble. They were one shot away from making it back to the finals last season. Yes, bus, yes, Jimmy missed the decisive three, But I think we know that that's not his strong suit and it's probably not the shot he wanted to take, but he knew it was the right shot,
and that moment took it missed it. Okay, they were a shot away from getting back to the finals last season, but now they're on the brink of becoming just the sixth number eight seed in NBA history to upset a number one seed. I'll tell you this much, I know where to turn when I do want to find support for my assertion that Butler's one of the ten best players in the league. I know where to go.
You go to his peers. That's who.
One of my absolute favorite memories from the bubble, I had the chance to sit down with Jimmy for about an hour one day. In the hallway of Disney World, there was one hallway where reporters could mingle with players and coaches and team people. This is remembered during the height of cod restrictions, but there was one hallway where reporters were allowed to be at the Coronado Springs resort, and players had to go through there, getting to meal rooms,
getting to practice courts, going back to their hotel. It was an area that they couldn't avoid us and that we were allowed to be, So of course I love to hang out there. Chris Mannox of Sports Illustrated he did the same. We were constantly bumping into each other because we knew that was a great place to see people. And so during this sit down with Jimmy, it just it was amazing to me how many players from different
teams stopped along the way to pay their respects. Wes Matthews and Pat Connaton from the Bucks, a slew of Lakers came by to basically show their respect to Jimmy. Rajon Rondo stayed for a while they were teammates in Milwaukee. They loved rehashing the series in twenty seventeen when they took a two zero lead over Boston in Boston and then Rondo suffered the hand injury, and you know, they remained convinced to this day that they win that series
if not for Rondo's injury. Brad Stevens was then the Celtics coach. He made sure that Jimmy heard him say hello as he passed by. And then I remember Robin Lopez then he was a former teammate of Jimmy's in Chicago. He was with Milwaukee at the time. He was the last in this slew of players to come by and say hello. And then as he walked away, Robin turned to me and he pointed at Butler.
And he said, this man is a treasure.
And I really feel that a lot of NBA players see it that exact same way. You see the ongoing love fest between Joel Embiid and Jimmy Butler after their brief stint as teammates. They're always talking about each other. Would not surprise me in the least if.
We see those guys.
Hook up together again in the future.
They're that fond of each other.
If there's a way it's gonna happen that they end up on the same team again, I don't know if that's probably not gonna happen in Philly, don't know if it's possible in Miami. Certainly don't know how it's possible in this new CBA world, but I'm sure they would both love to make it happen. So many pros they all saw it the same way as I did back in twenty twenty in the bubble, and we're seeing an even higher level of brilliance now in this series this spring.
Fifty six points again in Game four on nineteen for twenty eight shooting.
He only needed twenty eight.
Shots to score those fifty six points, and he did it on the night Janis Antetokounmpo made his return to the Bucks. We can't overlook this point either. Obviously Miami's three to one lead. Do they have a three to one lead if Yannis plays more than eleven minutes in the first three games of the series. Certainly that's a factor. That Jannis could only play those eleven minutes in Game one, missed two games with the back injury, comes back with
the triple double in game four. But saying all that, I mean Jimmy eclipse the triple double with what he did last night, and he's doing all this without Tyler Hero at his side. Heroes out for at least six weeks with a broken hand. And if you're not sure how big miss that is for Miami, let's not forget that no team in the regular season struggle to score as much as this Heat team. When I think back to that sit down three years ago in the bubble, and yes, of course he did. Jimmy Butler had a
cup of big rass coffee in his hand. He said, quote, believe me when I tell you that I do not care what people say about me. I truly don't care.
End quote.
Believe this, Jimmy Buckets. We're going to talk about you today and tomorrow. It looks like we're going to be talking about you longer than anyone imagined in this postseason.
If the Heat can just manufacture.
That one more win, they need to knock out the closest thing to a consensus favorite to win it all in Round one of these playoffs, or at least I'm gonna talk about you, whether you like it or not, because I think you are the most underrated player, certainly the most underrated star.
In the entire NBA, no matter what you think, Jimmy Buckets.
All right, everyone, that does it for me. Thanks for listening and to hear more from me. Please check out the next episode or past episodes of This League Uncut are twice weekly podcast which I am honored to do alongside Chris Haynes of Turner Sports. Please rate, and review and subscribe to This League Uncut, and if you already haven't, please subscribe to my substack the Steinline as well.
We'll talk soon, everybody, and that'll do it for us.
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