Hoops Tonight - Jimmy Butler to Warriors Reaction: Steph Curry & Golden State ready for playoff run?
February 5, 2025 • 17 mins
Jason Timpf reacts to the Golden State Warriors trading with the Miami Heat for star guard Jimmy Butler. Jason breaks down how Jimmy will solve many of the problems facing Golden State and discusses whether the pairing with Steph Curry is enough to lift the Warriors into championship contention. Later, Jason discusses why the return offer of Andrew Wiggins, Dennis Schroder, Kyle Anderson, and a first-round pick was the perfect outcome for the Miami Heat.
Timeline:
4:15 - Introduction
5:30 - Warriors trade for Jimmy Butler
10:00 - How Jimmy fits with Golden State
18:30 - Perfect outcome for Heat
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
The volume. This ain't the little itdy bitty teeny tiny Bowl.
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slash audio. All right, well, coon to hoops tonight here
(01:46):
at the volume heavy Wednesday. Everybody, hope all of you
guys are having a great week. Well, the Golden State
Warriors finally got a secondary star for Steph Curry as
Jimmy Butler has been traded from the Miami Heat to
the Bay. We're gonna be breaking down that deal from
the perspective of both teams. I'm also working on a
bigger trade deadline reaction that I planned on doing tonight,
but I'm actually pushing till tomorrow morning. We want to
talk Fox to the Spurs, Levine to the Bulls, I
(02:08):
want to talk Kuzma to the Bucks. I have more
thoughts on Luca to the Lakers and just whether or
not they should feel some more urgency in the short term.
I'm going to get into all of that in tomorrow
morning's episode. Tonight just hitting Jimmy to the Warriors. You
guys at the joke before we get started. Subscribe to
the Hoops Tonight YouTube channels you don't miss any more
of our videos. Follow me on Twitter at underscore JSNLT
so you guys don't miss how announcements. Don't forget about
(02:28):
a podast fee where if you get your podcast under
Hoops Tonight. It's also a super helpful if you leave
a rating and a review on that front. We also
have brand new social media feeds on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.
We're releasing content throughout the year. Make sure you guys
follow us there the last minut least. Keep dropping mailback
questions in the YouTube comments so that we can hit
them on Fridays throughout the remainder.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
Of the year. All right, let's talk some basketball.
Speaker 1 (02:47):
So there's still a bunch of details getting worked out,
but from what I can tell, the Warriors are getting
Jimmy Butler. Jimmy's agreed to a two year, one hundred
and twenty one million dollar contract extension as part of
the deal. The Heat are getting Andrew Wiggins in Peach
j Tucker. Looks like maybe Kyle Anderson. It looked like
he was originally heading to the Raptors, but now he's not.
They're also getting a protected first round pick. There are
(03:08):
some other moving parts. It looks like Dennis Schroeder is
getting rerouted to the Jazz, Lindy Waters is getting rerouted
to the Pistons. I think not sure where Kyle Anderson
is going. It looks like he might stay with the Heat.
But the gist of it is Wiggins in a protected
first round pick to the Heat, Jimmy Butler to the
Golden State Warriors. The Warriors finally did it. They finally
brought in a legit secondary star to play alongside Steph Curry.
(03:32):
There's been this weird energy surrounding the Warriors all year
one that I've disagreed with and then I've pushed back
with a pushback against a lot on the show, which
is that they're just a bad team. And I've watched
a lot of bad NBA teams, and to me, the
Warriors aren't one of them. They're well coached, they play
super hard, They're led by a top fifteen player in
(03:53):
the league. They have top ten defense. They're super deep
with role player talent. I was looking at this earlier
with the recent play of Gie Santos and quintin post.
I've counted fifteen different players this year that have played
quality minutes for the Warriors at various times during the year.
You can actually push that up to sixteen if you
want to count the Anthony Melton.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
They've reached some really high highs.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
According to Cleaning the Glass, they have eleven wins this
year against teams that are in the top ten in
point differential. That's the third most in the entire NBA.
They have a win against the Celtics. They have two
wins against the Houston Rockets. They have two wins against
the Memphis Grizzlies. They have two wins against Oklahoma City Thunder.
But there's a through line, there's a consistency in that
story in all but one of those wins against Boston, Houston, Memphis,
(04:37):
and Oklahoma City, and all but one of them they
scored at least one hundred and fifteen points. They can
beat anybody, but they have to score the basketball. In fact,
here's another crazy stat for you. The Warriors are twenty
and sixth this year when they score at least one
hundred and ten points, not one twenty, not some crazy
high number, when they hit just a baseline of one
hundred and ten points twenty and six. They are five
(05:01):
and eighteen when they fail to score one hundred and
ten points. When the Warriors score, they can beat anyone.
But the problem is they only have one reliably good
offensive player on the entire roster. That's Steph Curry. And yes,
his production has been inconsistent this year, but he still
gets guarded like Steph Curry. So even on the nights
where Steph isn't hitting shots and isn't putting up the
(05:22):
numbers he normally puts up, he's still regularly impacting the
game offensively in a positive way every single night because
of his gravity. Because of the way he's guarded, everyone
else is like a maybe they'll have it tonight kind
of guy right. Buddy Heald has shot twenty five percent
or worse from three and twenty two games this year.
(05:43):
Andrew Wiggins has hit twenty points seventeen times, but he's
failed to hit fifteen points thirteen times. So there's a
lot of good Wiggins, and there's a lot of games
where he just doesn't bring anything offensively. And Jonathan kaminga
has been just as likely to score twenty or more
in a game this year as he is to score
twelve or few. That's inconsistent, but that's not their fault.
We've never considered Buddy Heal to be this consistently good
(06:06):
offensive player. We've never considered Andrew Wiggins to be a
legit second option outside of that one year that him
and Jordan Poole kind of combined to fill that role
when they won the title. Johnathan Kaming is twenty two
years old. It's completely irrational to expect those guys to
be consistent producers on the offensive end of the floor.
(06:27):
All of those guys are being asked to do something
that's frankly above their pay grade. They're role players, and
role players are always going to have dramatic highs and
lows when it comes to the grind of the regular
season because the consistently great offensive players are not role players,
they're stars. And yet on the nights, when all those
guys play well and they hit their shots, they have
(06:47):
a top ten defense and they're led by Steph Curry,
So yeah, they can beat anybody. That's why I was
clamoring for this type of deal. You have this short
little window here where you have Steph Curry on your team,
a generational t that you might never have again. You
might literally never have this guy again. Think about the
way the Lukadancich trade was discussed over the course of
(07:07):
the last few days. You want to know why MAVs
fans were pissed. They're like, we might never have a
player like Lukadancic ever again in the history of the franchise,
and they feel like.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
They punted him.
Speaker 1 (07:19):
Obviously a little bit different circumstance in terms of the timeline,
but the point is is, like you have one of
those guys in Steph Curry, you might never have that
guy again, or anything even close to him. Potentially, you
don't just get to have top tier superstars. How many
of them are there in this league? Four, maybe five
they're exceedingly rare. You had to give him a fighting shot,
(07:40):
at least give him a chance, even though it was risky,
even though it cost you a draft pick. You were
destined for a rebuild after this era. Anyway, you might
as well go out with Steph playing in meaningful basketball
games while you still get to enjoy Steph playing in
meaningful basketball games. Let's start with the Jimmy Butler angle
on this first, and then we'll talk about the rest
of the roster. Jimmy hasn't played in the playoffs since
(08:03):
twenty twenty three because of that flukey injury he suffered
in the playing game. If you guys remember, but he
was a consensus top ten player in the league at
that point, and he's kind of uniquely viewed as one
of the few guys in the league that raises his
level of play when he gets to the postseason. I've
talked about this before. It's a very simple set of
circumstances in my opinion. He's big, strong, and fast, which
(08:24):
means as things get more intense athletically, he can thrive
in that setting. And then he's super versatile, meaning whatever
the challenges that's presented him, he can kind of shape
shift and fill different roles to whatever his team needs,
and as a result, he just has a higher floor.
He can change whatever he needs for that specific matchup,
so there's less situations where his talent doesn't match up
(08:47):
and more situations where his talent does match up to
the circumstances, and so he's able to play well. Now,
he had this ugly falling out with the Miami Heat,
and that's classic Jimmy. We've seen it before. But I
expect him to come into Golden State in immediately locked
back in as a member of the team, and just
before we get into some of the fit, it's just
real talent upside. He's still probably one of the top
(09:09):
fifteen players in the league you'd want to have on
your team in a playoff series. That's an automatic influx
of talent. So now let's talk about his fit with
the team. He's going to have to immediately fill two roles.
He's going to have to fill that Andrew Wiggins role
of that primary perimeter defender, but he's also going to
have to fill that Dennis Schroeder role in terms of
the guy that's got to be their secondary shot creator.
(09:31):
When Steph is on the floor and have to lead units.
When Steph is off the floor, He's going to have
to be their primary perimeter defensive weapon against the wings
of the Western Conference.
Speaker 2 (09:40):
Now he is capable of that. Like guys.
Speaker 1 (09:43):
His last playoff series that he played in was in
the finals, and in Game two he was like the
only guy I watched in that playoff run that actually
made Jamal Murray look uncomfortable the job he did chasing
over the top Jimmy and Bam together actually managing to
beat that Denver team once when no one else seemed
to be able to beat him right except for Phoenix.
(10:03):
So like we've seen him doing it an excellent job
guarding players on the perimeter in the playoffs. I think
in the regular season he'll be a slight downgrade from
Andrew Wiggins, but in high leverage spots he's still one
of the best defensive.
Speaker 2 (10:16):
Players in the league.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
But then he's also going to have to fill that
shot creation role that Dennis Field. This is where I
view him as a massive upgrade like Andrew Wiggins, I
view with in such highest team on the defensive end
of the floor. In a big part of Andrew's a
big part of Jimmy's ability to make this trade worth
it will be his ability to fill the shoes that
Andrew Wiggins leaves open on the defensive end of the floor.
(10:39):
But I do think Jimmy has that talent and that ability.
It's more just about commitment and his willingness to do
that amount of work. But I think, at least in
a postseason context, it's something that I think Jimmy's going
to be able to live up to. I think he's
just a massive upgrade over any sort of offensive weapon
that this team had. Last year, he was one of
the best matchup attacking players in the NBA. Of the
twenty four players ran who ran at least three hundred
(11:01):
ISOs last year, he ranked third in efficiency at one
point one to three points per possession including passes. He
was over a point per possession on almost two hundred
post ups. He was over fifty percent or just under
fifty percent excuse me, have floaters and hooks. Very gifted passer,
similar to what I was talking about earlier with Steph.
Even on the Knights, when Steph isn't hitting shots, he's
(11:23):
still creating shots with the way that he's guarded. Jimmy
Butler last year had fifteen games with at least seven assists.
Andrew Wiggins has had fourteen such games in his entire career.
That's how much of a playmaking upgrade Jimmy Butler is
over Andrew Wiggins. It will help them offensively in every
single way. It'll give him the best two man game
(11:43):
they've had since Kevin Durant was on the team again.
Any sort of action involving Steph and Jimmy is going
to present defenses with a lot of problems because the
kind of guy who's quick enough and attentive enough to
guard Steph's very different than the big kind of like Ford.
You need to deal with a guy like Jimmy Butler.
So any sort of action between the two of them,
Jimmy screens for Steph. They're gonna have to put two
(12:05):
on the ball now, Jimmy's gonna be open. You've got
a four on three being led by a very very
good offensive player, better than anybody else that's on the
roster at this point. Right Jimmy has the ball, Steph
screens for him. They don't switch to stay with Steph.
Jimmy's gonna go right downhill, rip to the basket for
a dunk. If they leave Steph to put two on Jimmy,
Steph's gonna be wide open poppingto the three point line.
(12:26):
And now, if Steph and Jimmy run a two man
game and there's a switch, Jimmy Butler is the type
of player that has the ability to consistently punish that
switch in a way that Andrew Wiggins could not. It's
a massive upgrade there. He's been a knockdown spot up
shooter for a few years now, like damn near fifty percent.
(12:46):
It'll give them a much much better chance to survive
than non Steph minutes. It'll give them a bona fide
playoff stud to just hang in terms of the talent
of those environments. And most importantly, it slots all the
other role players into more achievable roles. As long as
Steph and Jimmy are both healthy, you'll never have to
watch a bench unit without a star trying and failing
(13:07):
to score. As long as those two guys are healthy,
you won't have to see that. I'm super excited to
see this group in action. Also, the spot up shoot
numbers that's based on catch and shoot numbers. He's been
shooting about fifty percent on catch and shoot jump shots
for the last couple of years, which is crazy. And
you still have depth. This is the beauty of having
fifteen guys that have all played quality minutes for you.
Speaker 2 (13:28):
This year. You kept kaminga.
Speaker 1 (13:30):
You still have Buddy Heal, Trace Jackson, Davis Kavan, Louoni,
Moses Moody, Gary Payton the second. I'm super excited to
watch lineups with Jimmy Draymond and Gary Payton all on
the floor together playing defense. Brandon Potemski is still on
the roster, Gi Santo's Quinton Post. By my count, you
still have eleven guys who can play quality minutes in
the NBA, and now you have them all in more
achievable roles. Not to mention, you just have a stronger
(13:53):
foundation this summer. If you're if there's some other hole
in the roster that appears over the course the next
couple months and you want to try to round it
out this summer. Now you have a stronger foundation with
Steph Raymond and Jimmy as opposed to just Stephan Draymond.
The Warriors are currently two and a half games out
of the sixth seed. Do I think they're gonna climb
to the top of the conference. No, I mean they
(14:15):
have a chance to get out of the plane. But like,
they're not gonna be some dominant team in the Western Conference.
Speaker 2 (14:20):
But now when you face the.
Speaker 1 (14:22):
Warriors in a playoff series, it's contending with Steph Draymond
and Jimmy Butler. You've changed the entire challenge of trying
to overcome the talent that the Golden State Warriors have
on the table. This is again when you're in a
situation like the Warriors are in where you're a little
(14:42):
bit strapped for assets, where the types of salaries you
have to match. Like before the deal, I think they
had six guys that make between five and ten million.
That makes it really hard to aggregate salaries without giving
up a ton of players. They were in a tough spot.
There was no perfect deal. There was nothing out there
that was gonna magically turn them into some top tier contender.
But you went from a team that had no shot
because they didn't have the shot creation talent necessary to
(15:04):
actually contend to now you there's a chance there. Now
I can see Steph and Jimmy in a playoff series
and the defense comes together. This is a top ten defense.
You can imagine a lineup with Steph next to Gary Payton,
with Jimmy on the floor, Jonathan Minga and Draymond and
you're like, there's actually a good amount of talent, athleticism,
(15:26):
defensive talent, guys that can score the basketball on the floor.
That's a lineup that might cause some problems for teams,
Whereas we've seen too often this year, like if you
just guard the Warriors, well, they probably aren't gonna make
any shots and you'll probably beat them. It just gives
you an upside that wasn't there before. And I just
(15:47):
really wanted to see Steph playing some more meaningful basketball games,
and I'm really really excited that we're going to get
to see that. I think this was probably the perfect
outcome for the Miami Heat. Andrew Wiggins is a really
high level role player. In the same way that he's
like underqualified for what the Golden State Warriors needed from him,
he's overqualified for what the Miami Heat need from it,
and that's a good thing. I think he's a top
(16:08):
tier perimeter defender in this league. He's got the speed
to guard guards and the size of guard wings. I'm
super excited to see him in lineups next to Bam
and kill el ware like that could be frightening to
deal with defensively. But most importantly, you turned a malcontent
who is actively trying to sabotage your season into a
really high level role player that plays the same position,
(16:31):
and you got a first round pick out of it.
Too hard not to view that as a massive win
for the Miami Heat compared to the alternative. The alternative
is your max contract player is just actively trying to
mess up everything that you're trying to do. Now you
can move on see what this group is capable of.
I think there's an obvious offensive ceiling on a team
(16:53):
that's led by Terry Rogier, Duncan Robinson, Tyler harrowbam Adebayo.
There's an obvious offensive limitation there. But now you have
the actual type of top end athletic personnel on the
wing to anchor your frontline and give yourself a defensive
ceiling that wasn't there before, or at least wasn't there
(17:13):
because Jimmy Butler wasn't playing. So I mean, I think
if you really compare it to some of the other
deals that were getting floated around out there. I think
this one actually made the most sense for them in
terms of increasing their potential in the short and the
long term. All right, guys, that's all I have for tonight. Again,
as I said, I'm going to get much deeper into
the trade deadline tomorrow. I'll get into a bunch of
other storylines. As always, a sincerely appreciate you guys for
(17:35):
rocking with me and for supporting the show. And I'll
see you guys then.
Speaker 2 (17:40):
The volume.
Speaker 1 (17:41):
What so, guys, As always, I appreciate you for listening
to and supporting OOPS tonight. They would actually be really
helpful for us if you guys would take a second
and leave a rating and a review. As always, I
appreciate you guys supporting us, but if you could take
a minute to do that, I'd really appreciate it.
The volume. This ain't the little itdy bitty teeny tiny Bowl.
This is Super Bowl fifty nine. Get in on the
action at Draft Kings Sportsbook, an official sports betting partner
of Super Bowl fifty nine. Scoring touchdowns is key to
hoisting the Vince Lombardi Trophy, and you have a shot
to score big by betting on them at Draft King
sports Book, the number one place to bet touchdowns. Ready
(00:21):
to place your bet. Try betting on something simple like
a player to score six. Go to the Draftking Sportsbook
gap and make your pick right now. The Chiefs open
as a very slight favorite at minus one and a half.
I'm personally rooting for the Chiefs, mainly because I appreciate
them as one of the greatest teams of all time,
and as a Cowboys fan, I just literally cannot stand
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Crown is yours. Gamble problem called one ted hundred gambler
in New York call eight seven seven eight Hope and
why or text hope and why to four six seven
(01:06):
three six nine Connecticut. Help us available for problem gambling
Call eight eight eight seven eight nine seven seven seven
seven or visit.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
CCPG dot org.
Speaker 1 (01:14):
Please play responsibly on behalf of Boothill Casino and Resort
in Kansas twenty one plus. Age and eligibility varies by
jurisdiction VOYD in Ontario new customers only. Bonus bets expire
one hundred and sixty eight hours after issuance. For additional
terms and responsible gaming resources, see d KNG dot co
slash audio. All right, well, coon to hoops tonight here
(01:46):
at the volume heavy Wednesday. Everybody, hope all of you
guys are having a great week. Well, the Golden State
Warriors finally got a secondary star for Steph Curry as
Jimmy Butler has been traded from the Miami Heat to
the Bay. We're gonna be breaking down that deal from
the perspective of both teams. I'm also working on a
bigger trade deadline reaction that I planned on doing tonight,
but I'm actually pushing till tomorrow morning. We want to
talk Fox to the Spurs, Levine to the Bulls, I
(02:08):
want to talk Kuzma to the Bucks. I have more
thoughts on Luca to the Lakers and just whether or
not they should feel some more urgency in the short term.
I'm going to get into all of that in tomorrow
morning's episode. Tonight just hitting Jimmy to the Warriors. You
guys at the joke before we get started. Subscribe to
the Hoops Tonight YouTube channels you don't miss any more
of our videos. Follow me on Twitter at underscore JSNLT
so you guys don't miss how announcements. Don't forget about
(02:28):
a podast fee where if you get your podcast under
Hoops Tonight. It's also a super helpful if you leave
a rating and a review on that front. We also
have brand new social media feeds on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.
We're releasing content throughout the year. Make sure you guys
follow us there the last minut least. Keep dropping mailback
questions in the YouTube comments so that we can hit
them on Fridays throughout the remainder.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
Of the year. All right, let's talk some basketball.
Speaker 1 (02:47):
So there's still a bunch of details getting worked out,
but from what I can tell, the Warriors are getting
Jimmy Butler. Jimmy's agreed to a two year, one hundred
and twenty one million dollar contract extension as part of
the deal. The Heat are getting Andrew Wiggins in Peach
j Tucker. Looks like maybe Kyle Anderson. It looked like
he was originally heading to the Raptors, but now he's not.
They're also getting a protected first round pick. There are
(03:08):
some other moving parts. It looks like Dennis Schroeder is
getting rerouted to the Jazz, Lindy Waters is getting rerouted
to the Pistons. I think not sure where Kyle Anderson
is going. It looks like he might stay with the Heat.
But the gist of it is Wiggins in a protected
first round pick to the Heat, Jimmy Butler to the
Golden State Warriors. The Warriors finally did it. They finally
brought in a legit secondary star to play alongside Steph Curry.
(03:32):
There's been this weird energy surrounding the Warriors all year
one that I've disagreed with and then I've pushed back
with a pushback against a lot on the show, which
is that they're just a bad team. And I've watched
a lot of bad NBA teams, and to me, the
Warriors aren't one of them. They're well coached, they play
super hard, They're led by a top fifteen player in
(03:53):
the league. They have top ten defense. They're super deep
with role player talent. I was looking at this earlier
with the recent play of Gie Santos and quintin post.
I've counted fifteen different players this year that have played
quality minutes for the Warriors at various times during the year.
You can actually push that up to sixteen if you
want to count the Anthony Melton.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
They've reached some really high highs.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
According to Cleaning the Glass, they have eleven wins this
year against teams that are in the top ten in
point differential. That's the third most in the entire NBA.
They have a win against the Celtics. They have two
wins against the Houston Rockets. They have two wins against
the Memphis Grizzlies. They have two wins against Oklahoma City Thunder.
But there's a through line, there's a consistency in that
story in all but one of those wins against Boston, Houston, Memphis,
(04:37):
and Oklahoma City, and all but one of them they
scored at least one hundred and fifteen points. They can
beat anybody, but they have to score the basketball. In fact,
here's another crazy stat for you. The Warriors are twenty
and sixth this year when they score at least one
hundred and ten points, not one twenty, not some crazy
high number, when they hit just a baseline of one
hundred and ten points twenty and six. They are five
(05:01):
and eighteen when they fail to score one hundred and
ten points. When the Warriors score, they can beat anyone.
But the problem is they only have one reliably good
offensive player on the entire roster. That's Steph Curry. And yes,
his production has been inconsistent this year, but he still
gets guarded like Steph Curry. So even on the nights
where Steph isn't hitting shots and isn't putting up the
(05:22):
numbers he normally puts up, he's still regularly impacting the
game offensively in a positive way every single night because
of his gravity. Because of the way he's guarded, everyone
else is like a maybe they'll have it tonight kind
of guy right. Buddy Heald has shot twenty five percent
or worse from three and twenty two games this year.
(05:43):
Andrew Wiggins has hit twenty points seventeen times, but he's
failed to hit fifteen points thirteen times. So there's a
lot of good Wiggins, and there's a lot of games
where he just doesn't bring anything offensively. And Jonathan kaminga
has been just as likely to score twenty or more
in a game this year as he is to score
twelve or few. That's inconsistent, but that's not their fault.
We've never considered Buddy Heal to be this consistently good
(06:06):
offensive player. We've never considered Andrew Wiggins to be a
legit second option outside of that one year that him
and Jordan Poole kind of combined to fill that role
when they won the title. Johnathan Kaming is twenty two
years old. It's completely irrational to expect those guys to
be consistent producers on the offensive end of the floor.
(06:27):
All of those guys are being asked to do something
that's frankly above their pay grade. They're role players, and
role players are always going to have dramatic highs and
lows when it comes to the grind of the regular
season because the consistently great offensive players are not role players,
they're stars. And yet on the nights, when all those
guys play well and they hit their shots, they have
(06:47):
a top ten defense and they're led by Steph Curry,
So yeah, they can beat anybody. That's why I was
clamoring for this type of deal. You have this short
little window here where you have Steph Curry on your team,
a generational t that you might never have again. You
might literally never have this guy again. Think about the
way the Lukadancich trade was discussed over the course of
(07:07):
the last few days. You want to know why MAVs
fans were pissed. They're like, we might never have a
player like Lukadancic ever again in the history of the franchise,
and they feel like.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
They punted him.
Speaker 1 (07:19):
Obviously a little bit different circumstance in terms of the timeline,
but the point is is, like you have one of
those guys in Steph Curry, you might never have that
guy again, or anything even close to him. Potentially, you
don't just get to have top tier superstars. How many
of them are there in this league? Four, maybe five
they're exceedingly rare. You had to give him a fighting shot,
(07:40):
at least give him a chance, even though it was risky,
even though it cost you a draft pick. You were
destined for a rebuild after this era. Anyway, you might
as well go out with Steph playing in meaningful basketball
games while you still get to enjoy Steph playing in
meaningful basketball games. Let's start with the Jimmy Butler angle
on this first, and then we'll talk about the rest
of the roster. Jimmy hasn't played in the playoffs since
(08:03):
twenty twenty three because of that flukey injury he suffered
in the playing game. If you guys remember, but he
was a consensus top ten player in the league at
that point, and he's kind of uniquely viewed as one
of the few guys in the league that raises his
level of play when he gets to the postseason. I've
talked about this before. It's a very simple set of
circumstances in my opinion. He's big, strong, and fast, which
(08:24):
means as things get more intense athletically, he can thrive
in that setting. And then he's super versatile, meaning whatever
the challenges that's presented him, he can kind of shape
shift and fill different roles to whatever his team needs,
and as a result, he just has a higher floor.
He can change whatever he needs for that specific matchup,
so there's less situations where his talent doesn't match up
(08:47):
and more situations where his talent does match up to
the circumstances, and so he's able to play well. Now,
he had this ugly falling out with the Miami Heat,
and that's classic Jimmy. We've seen it before. But I
expect him to come into Golden State in immediately locked
back in as a member of the team, and just
before we get into some of the fit, it's just
real talent upside. He's still probably one of the top
(09:09):
fifteen players in the league you'd want to have on
your team in a playoff series. That's an automatic influx
of talent. So now let's talk about his fit with
the team. He's going to have to immediately fill two roles.
He's going to have to fill that Andrew Wiggins role
of that primary perimeter defender, but he's also going to
have to fill that Dennis Schroeder role in terms of
the guy that's got to be their secondary shot creator.
(09:31):
When Steph is on the floor and have to lead units.
When Steph is off the floor, He's going to have
to be their primary perimeter defensive weapon against the wings
of the Western Conference.
Speaker 2 (09:40):
Now he is capable of that. Like guys.
Speaker 1 (09:43):
His last playoff series that he played in was in
the finals, and in Game two he was like the
only guy I watched in that playoff run that actually
made Jamal Murray look uncomfortable the job he did chasing
over the top Jimmy and Bam together actually managing to
beat that Denver team once when no one else seemed
to be able to beat him right except for Phoenix.
(10:03):
So like we've seen him doing it an excellent job
guarding players on the perimeter in the playoffs. I think
in the regular season he'll be a slight downgrade from
Andrew Wiggins, but in high leverage spots he's still one
of the best defensive.
Speaker 2 (10:16):
Players in the league.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
But then he's also going to have to fill that
shot creation role that Dennis Field. This is where I
view him as a massive upgrade like Andrew Wiggins, I
view with in such highest team on the defensive end
of the floor. In a big part of Andrew's a
big part of Jimmy's ability to make this trade worth
it will be his ability to fill the shoes that
Andrew Wiggins leaves open on the defensive end of the floor.
(10:39):
But I do think Jimmy has that talent and that ability.
It's more just about commitment and his willingness to do
that amount of work. But I think, at least in
a postseason context, it's something that I think Jimmy's going
to be able to live up to. I think he's
just a massive upgrade over any sort of offensive weapon
that this team had. Last year, he was one of
the best matchup attacking players in the NBA. Of the
twenty four players ran who ran at least three hundred
(11:01):
ISOs last year, he ranked third in efficiency at one
point one to three points per possession including passes. He
was over a point per possession on almost two hundred
post ups. He was over fifty percent or just under
fifty percent excuse me, have floaters and hooks. Very gifted passer,
similar to what I was talking about earlier with Steph.
Even on the Knights, when Steph isn't hitting shots, he's
(11:23):
still creating shots with the way that he's guarded. Jimmy
Butler last year had fifteen games with at least seven assists.
Andrew Wiggins has had fourteen such games in his entire career.
That's how much of a playmaking upgrade Jimmy Butler is
over Andrew Wiggins. It will help them offensively in every
single way. It'll give him the best two man game
(11:43):
they've had since Kevin Durant was on the team again.
Any sort of action involving Steph and Jimmy is going
to present defenses with a lot of problems because the
kind of guy who's quick enough and attentive enough to
guard Steph's very different than the big kind of like Ford.
You need to deal with a guy like Jimmy Butler.
So any sort of action between the two of them,
Jimmy screens for Steph. They're gonna have to put two
(12:05):
on the ball now, Jimmy's gonna be open. You've got
a four on three being led by a very very
good offensive player, better than anybody else that's on the
roster at this point. Right Jimmy has the ball, Steph
screens for him. They don't switch to stay with Steph.
Jimmy's gonna go right downhill, rip to the basket for
a dunk. If they leave Steph to put two on Jimmy,
Steph's gonna be wide open poppingto the three point line.
(12:26):
And now, if Steph and Jimmy run a two man
game and there's a switch, Jimmy Butler is the type
of player that has the ability to consistently punish that
switch in a way that Andrew Wiggins could not. It's
a massive upgrade there. He's been a knockdown spot up
shooter for a few years now, like damn near fifty percent.
(12:46):
It'll give them a much much better chance to survive
than non Steph minutes. It'll give them a bona fide
playoff stud to just hang in terms of the talent
of those environments. And most importantly, it slots all the
other role players into more achievable roles. As long as
Steph and Jimmy are both healthy, you'll never have to
watch a bench unit without a star trying and failing
(13:07):
to score. As long as those two guys are healthy,
you won't have to see that. I'm super excited to
see this group in action. Also, the spot up shoot
numbers that's based on catch and shoot numbers. He's been
shooting about fifty percent on catch and shoot jump shots
for the last couple of years, which is crazy. And
you still have depth. This is the beauty of having
fifteen guys that have all played quality minutes for you.
Speaker 2 (13:28):
This year. You kept kaminga.
Speaker 1 (13:30):
You still have Buddy Heal, Trace Jackson, Davis Kavan, Louoni,
Moses Moody, Gary Payton the second. I'm super excited to
watch lineups with Jimmy Draymond and Gary Payton all on
the floor together playing defense. Brandon Potemski is still on
the roster, Gi Santo's Quinton Post. By my count, you
still have eleven guys who can play quality minutes in
the NBA, and now you have them all in more
achievable roles. Not to mention, you just have a stronger
(13:53):
foundation this summer. If you're if there's some other hole
in the roster that appears over the course the next
couple months and you want to try to round it
out this summer. Now you have a stronger foundation with
Steph Raymond and Jimmy as opposed to just Stephan Draymond.
The Warriors are currently two and a half games out
of the sixth seed. Do I think they're gonna climb
to the top of the conference. No, I mean they
(14:15):
have a chance to get out of the plane. But like,
they're not gonna be some dominant team in the Western Conference.
Speaker 2 (14:20):
But now when you face the.
Speaker 1 (14:22):
Warriors in a playoff series, it's contending with Steph Draymond
and Jimmy Butler. You've changed the entire challenge of trying
to overcome the talent that the Golden State Warriors have
on the table. This is again when you're in a
situation like the Warriors are in where you're a little
(14:42):
bit strapped for assets, where the types of salaries you
have to match. Like before the deal, I think they
had six guys that make between five and ten million.
That makes it really hard to aggregate salaries without giving
up a ton of players. They were in a tough spot.
There was no perfect deal. There was nothing out there
that was gonna magically turn them into some top tier contender.
But you went from a team that had no shot
because they didn't have the shot creation talent necessary to
(15:04):
actually contend to now you there's a chance there. Now
I can see Steph and Jimmy in a playoff series
and the defense comes together. This is a top ten defense.
You can imagine a lineup with Steph next to Gary Payton,
with Jimmy on the floor, Jonathan Minga and Draymond and
you're like, there's actually a good amount of talent, athleticism,
(15:26):
defensive talent, guys that can score the basketball on the floor.
That's a lineup that might cause some problems for teams,
Whereas we've seen too often this year, like if you
just guard the Warriors, well, they probably aren't gonna make
any shots and you'll probably beat them. It just gives
you an upside that wasn't there before. And I just
(15:47):
really wanted to see Steph playing some more meaningful basketball games,
and I'm really really excited that we're going to get
to see that. I think this was probably the perfect
outcome for the Miami Heat. Andrew Wiggins is a really
high level role player. In the same way that he's
like underqualified for what the Golden State Warriors needed from him,
he's overqualified for what the Miami Heat need from it,
and that's a good thing. I think he's a top
(16:08):
tier perimeter defender in this league. He's got the speed
to guard guards and the size of guard wings. I'm
super excited to see him in lineups next to Bam
and kill el ware like that could be frightening to
deal with defensively. But most importantly, you turned a malcontent
who is actively trying to sabotage your season into a
really high level role player that plays the same position,
(16:31):
and you got a first round pick out of it.
Too hard not to view that as a massive win
for the Miami Heat compared to the alternative. The alternative
is your max contract player is just actively trying to
mess up everything that you're trying to do. Now you
can move on see what this group is capable of.
I think there's an obvious offensive ceiling on a team
(16:53):
that's led by Terry Rogier, Duncan Robinson, Tyler harrowbam Adebayo.
There's an obvious offensive limitation there. But now you have
the actual type of top end athletic personnel on the
wing to anchor your frontline and give yourself a defensive
ceiling that wasn't there before, or at least wasn't there
(17:13):
because Jimmy Butler wasn't playing. So I mean, I think
if you really compare it to some of the other
deals that were getting floated around out there. I think
this one actually made the most sense for them in
terms of increasing their potential in the short and the
long term. All right, guys, that's all I have for tonight. Again,
as I said, I'm going to get much deeper into
the trade deadline tomorrow. I'll get into a bunch of
other storylines. As always, a sincerely appreciate you guys for
(17:35):
rocking with me and for supporting the show. And I'll
see you guys then.
Speaker 2 (17:40):
The volume.
Speaker 1 (17:41):
What so, guys, As always, I appreciate you for listening
to and supporting OOPS tonight. They would actually be really
helpful for us if you guys would take a second
and leave a rating and a review. As always, I
appreciate you guys supporting us, but if you could take
a minute to do that, I'd really appreciate it.
Host
Jason Timpf
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