Jimmy Butler Was Already In Midseason Form During His Media Day Press Conference

Nathaniel S. Butler. Getty Images.

For the majority of the NBA, today is Media Day. The 2022-23 NBA season is upon us if you can believe it. Thank fucking God. Only the longest 3+ months of my life but before you know it the sport we all love will be on our TVs every night and life will be back to being great. 

I'd say for about 99.9% of teams in the NBA, today is a day of celebration. Unless you happen to be the Boston Celtics, you enter Media day with all the optimism in the world. This is the year your team figures it out and gets over the hump. Everyone is in the best shape of their lives and never felt better after having an incredible summer in the gym. It's a time to truly get drunk off your favorite team's Kool Aid. Why not? Anything is possible as of today.

When it comes to the Heat, they enter another season with high expectations. A 1 seed last year, they were a Jimmy Butler transition three from making it back to the NBA Finals. Unfortunately, he missed and they lost a Game 7 on their own floor. But if there's one thing we know about the Heat it's that they tend to figure it out each and every year. Is it maybe a little concerning that they need to rely on an even older Kyle Lowry and a guy with brutal injury history in Victor Oladipo? Sure. But if there's one thing you can rely on it's that Jimmy Butler is going to do whatever it takes to win and be pretty good while he does it.

Even though I find the whole #HeatCulture thing very annoying, I have nothing but respect for Jimmy Butler. How could you not? The dude is the very definition of a gamer. He's been that way everywhere he plays. When the stakes get higher, he gets better. So it should not surprise you at all that the second he stepped up to the mic today for Media Day he showed that he's already in midseason form

One of the important storylines for the Heat this upcoming season is what they do about PJ Tucker's spot in the rotation. At the moment, you're looking at either Duncan Robinson or maybe Caleb Martin starting at that four spot. That has the potential to be a pretty big issue, especially defensively. Even with PJ getting older, he's still a tough as nails player who can defend at a good level and he'll make his corner threes. That's a big loss and I do wonder if we see more lineups with Herro on the floor which slides Jimmy to the four. Maybe they play Dedmon and Bam together for stretches? 

Now that 50 point remark might rub people the wrong way or seem outrageous. I kind of agree with Jimmy here, mostly because I just lived through it. He didn't get exactly 50, but he did come damn close

One of the things I love about Butler's game is how he scores. He basically can't shoot threes (but will get hot at times), so he has to score in other ways. I'd say he has an old man game where he thrives in the midrange and still thinks 2pt FGA are good shots. I also love how he is able to absorb contact when attacking the rim. In today's NBA you have a bunch of elite scorers that try and avoid contact, not Butler. I very rarely found himself upset with the fouls he would draw in the Celts series because he was actually getting hit. There was no flopping or embellishing for the most part, and I respect that. Given his status in the league he could certainly do that shit if he wanted, but he never really does.

This was a nugget I found interesting from the Heat's pressers this morning. Anyone who watched the MIA/BOS series know that Bam disappeared offensively on multiple occasions. I don't know what the deal was, maybe Rob Williams was in his head or something because the man refused to shoot. Given the fact that Herro didn't give them anything, Lowry wasn't all that great, and Duncan Robinson couldn't even see the floor, they needed Bam to have a pulse offensively and it just never came. So to hear Jimmy talk about how they want Bam to be aggressive, and then for Bam to let this drop

That's a pretty big deal for the Heat. For reference, last year was Bam's highest FGA season of his career at 13.0. To get that up to an 18.0 FGA average would be a pretty drastic change. Does he finally have some sort of offensive bag? Is his jumper at least respectable now? The numbers back up the idea that when Bam shoots more the Heat usually do well. Now Jimmy Butler only took 14.5 FGA last year so I think the 18 number may be a little aggressive, but what matters here is the overall point. Having Bam involved more offensively is something I think every Heat fan wants to see, it's now just a matter of if Bam has the mentality to actually do it. Having Butler support that idea should only help.

All last year people sort of waited for the Heat to drop in the standings, and they never did. When you are a team that tries hard every night, success usually follows. You could make the case that they are being slept on a little bit heading into the 2022-23 season while other teams that were not nearly as successful last year have all the hype heading into this season. The talent in the East is certainly no joke and it's not as if the Heat made any sort of big offseason additions to their roster, but as long as Jimmy Butler is on your team you'll probably be just fine.