Four months ago, on the north shore of Oahu, Steve Kerr’s mind drifted from the cautious optimism of training camp to the perils of Ringz Culture.
Maybe it was the surfside yoga talking.
“To modern sports fandom, everything is, ‘Win the championship or nothing else matters,’” Kerr and his nine rings said. “But it’s really not true. What matters is do you have a good team? Do you have a team that your fans love watching? Do you have a team that, ‘Hey, we’ve got a shot.’ Let’s be scrappy, let’s be tough as hell. Let’s have a team that brings a lot of juice, a lot of energy, a lot of joy. This is not a zero-sum game.”
The Jimmy Butler trade is in service of that. Scrappy? Tough as hell? Fun to watch? Juice? You bet.
Even with Butler, the Warriors certainly aren’t title favorites. Their odds in Vegas went from +6600 to +4000 to win the championship — basically from 1% to 3% chances. That doesn’t mean adding Butler wasn’t worthwhile.
The Warriors didn’t necessarily need to trade for Butler, the mercurial star who has taken a blow torch to three different franchises on his way out. But they needed to shake the roster up. They needed to do something.
And Butler is certainly something.
The Warriors were going nowhere, and they were going nowhere in spectacularly stale style. For a third straight season. In the twilight of Steph Curry’s career.
They’d found so many new ways to lose they’d started to repeat themselves. Free throws and layups have become advanced calculus courses. The Warriors haven’t won three straight games since their 12-3 start in November. Their roster so redundant and bland, Quinten Post hitting a couple 3s was a breath of fresh air.
Butler won’t fix everything. But he at least changes the team’s DNA.
“He’s here for a reason,” Curry said. “To help try to get us to the next level. It’s going to look different. … Get us to a level where we’re playing consistent basketball. I know he’s hungry to get back out there and play. He’s had a wild up-and-down year for a lot of reasons. I’m excited for him to be a part of what we do. And ultimate confidence that we’ll be able to figure it out. All you want is a chance and I think he can help us get there.”
He’s a risk. Chicago learned that, Minnesota learned that, and Miami learned that. Even beyond his personality, the 35-year-old hasn’t played 65 or more games since 2019.
And although he projected charm and excitement as he introduced himself as a Warrior at Crypto.com Arena, he and the Warriors aren’t starting off their relationship on the strongest of footing. The Warriors weren’t his first choice, and he wasn’t the Warriors’ first choice. It was an arranged marriage made out of process of elimination and desperation from both sides.
But many of Butler’s issues in the past have been contract related, and the Warriors did well to add a year to his contract with an extension. He has no excuse but to be motivated, committed and hungry.
Even if he’s not, for whatever reason, trading for Butler is worth the risk. The alternative was a third straight season in the middle — exactly where you don’t want to be in the NBA. The Warriors weren’t in a position to keep running it back. Everyone liking each other in the locker room isn’t a reason to keep it together when the results have been so painfully mediocre.
Addressing the trade, general manager Mike Dunleavy said that he’s glad the team kept its powder dry on some of the players who they could’ve acquired in the past. It allowed them to acquire a player of Butler’s caliber. At his best, he’s an elite two-way player, a dog, a playoff performer and a Swiss Army knife who lives in the paint and at the line. A future Hall of Famer, he’s a talent upgrade over Andrew Wiggins.
Just as it’s on Curry and Draymond Green to prove Dunleavy correct, Butler has to perform to vindicate the general manager who went out and picked the path around three aging stars.
It’s totally possible the Butler era ends in a crash and burn. But the Warriors traded no risk, no reward for a flammable, ceiling-raising swing. When you’re going nowhere, you have no choice but to welcome the possibility of the unknown.
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