Jimmy Butler Is EXPOSING The NBA's Problem

Jimmy Butler exposed the NBA’s problem #NBA #butler

Yes the Nuggets won, yes Jokic won finals MVP, but I’m not going to forget about Jimmy Butler who keeps making NBA Finals putting up 56 points in a game, a 40 point triple double, but what if I told you he isn’t even a top 20 player in the league during the regular season? How can that make sense?

Because Jimmy Butler chooses to not care. Even if he didn’t have a great finals this time around, the Heat had less than 3% chance of making the finals before the season started and Jimmy got em there, he averaged a near 27 point triple double in the 2020 finals. He’s exposed the NBA once again and he’s not the only one proving ****that the regular season is becoming meanlingless. Unless the NBA acknowledges this, as you’re going to see, this problem is only going to get worse. In fact it already has when you take a look at NBA viewership.

The NBA was sky high during the Jordan era, the highest ever, takes a dip after his retirement, goes back up with Kobe LeBron, stays pretty solid with LeBron and the Warriors, but has continued to dip. People claimed it was parity, that Cavs and Warriors repeat every year is boring for the season. But we have parity now and viewership is no where close to 2018.

The way people flock to the screen to see what Playoff Jimmy Butler is going to do today is not the same during the regular season. Butler has the most 40 point playoff games in Heat history and a lot of legends have worn that jersey and not a single 40 point game with the Heat in the regular season. And you can make the point that each game is not as important in the regular season, I agree. but I’d like to go back to one of the highest viewed eras in NBA history, 2008-2014 and here’s what Kobe’s attitude about that was, But if a guy can cruise through the regular season, turn and make the finals, what does that say about the regular season? We’ve seen it with Kawhi repeatedly taking games off, coming into the playoffs and becoming a top 5 player in the league again.

On November 2012 specifically is when it all started to go downhill, a date we’ll get to, but this year, the NBA is stating that the NBA Finals has the same viewership as last year and higher than Suns Bucks in 2021? I wish that was the case, but from my diehard basketball friends, I got texts like “there was a finals game yesterday”. 2 years ago, you couldn’t peel him away from the screen during a finals game and now he doesn’t even know where one going on?

The first big case of load management started in 2012. The NBA fined the Spurs when they sat out Tim Duncan, Ginobli, Parker and Danny Green against the LeBron Wade Bosh Heat on a nationally televised game, a big match up that was ruined. NBA commisioner at the time David Stern fined the Spurs 250 grand stating that the Spurs “did a disservice to the league and our fans” and for violating a policy of resting players in a manner contrary to the best interest of the NBA. And that fine was a slight deterrent from doing it again. It was big news, arguments for both sides advocating this as a strategy and warnings that ****“this could ruin the NBA” ****

But as Adam Silver took the reigns, we saw more and more players load managing during big games.

What happened to the violating for the best interests of the NBA? They changed what the interest was to something that would ruin the integrity of the sport.

The idea of load management was to protect players. Ideally, if you rest players strategically for games that are “meaningless”, you could have healthier players that are more ready for the most important games in the playoffs. Players are saying that it’s the management that’s forcing players to sit. Larry Nance said that “I do know on occasion that it’s not the player’s choice.”

So if players aren’t incentivized enough to play hard during the regular season consistently and management is stepping in to protect their assets, I ask the question, why are we watching the regular season? And if I’m having difficulty selling the NBA when it’s my literal job to watch the games, I can understand why so many people have decided not to tune in, but there’s just something the NBA won’t admit, a solution that I’m going to outline right now,

If Jimmy, Kawhi, other stars can miss 25% per season and still dominate in the playoffs without consequence, ah that’s it. Consequences**.** Adam Silver has failed over and over to protect the integrity of the sport, trying to turn it into a spectacle that’s lost it’s core value over the years instead of doubling down what David Stern did in 2012. Don’t let players sit out key matchups. Have it so missing regular season games trigger hefty fines, penalties in season record, penalties that could carry over to the playoffs. Make the regular season feel so important that it’s not optional.

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