Especially when half of it isn’t even criticism, just fragile pseudo-masculinity being poured out onto others

My dad would have definitely said worse. He’s supportive and speaks his mind. Great trait to have as a dad but I probably can’t run for public office in case people start asking him questions.

You can’t get a word out of MJ’s mouth unless you give him atleast $10M 1st

I suspect that the pope wears white

It would be the cherry on top if Bam and Spo win a chip with Giannis. A nice bookend to Jimmy’s toxic career.

I believe in playoff Jimmy to a point. I don’t think there was a time after that finals run where he could’ve been the number 1 option and as far as his play style goes if he isn’t able to initiate the contact he needs to grind out point at the line that’ll open everything else for him he’s ineffective. And facts is that he’s just older now.

What he did with that Heat team in the bubble was incredible. However, he does seem like a guy you only want on your team for 2-4 years max

Truly MJ’s child

He is

I mean Jimmy was right

In some timeline, the 76ers kept Jimmy and his hardnosedness actually got the best out of Ben Simmons and they won multiple championships.

Definitely comes off as a piece of shit human.

Hot take, playoff Jimmy is Playoffs Jimmy until they go to the ECF and Finals, then Jimmy disappears.

Bubble Jimmy was on a different level tho.

Might be? Lol

I believe in Playoff Wiggins.

Bron destroyed playoff Jimmy in the bubble.

Playoff Jimmy benefited from very weak foul calls during those 2 finals runs. If he played against 2026 levels of physicality, there would be no Playoff Jimmy.

Playoff Jimmy has had some good runs but people always completely ignore the season where he got outscored by Bryn Forbes for the series as the Bucks swept the Heat.

Playoff jimmy will get you to the show but that shit doesn’t last in the finals.

You can just stop at “Jimmy is an asshole.”

Sometimes that level of asshole is why they become the best of the best. But yeah the shit he put a 21-22 year old through was fucked up. And for what?

Not defending Jimmy or MJ or Kobe being dickheads at all btw. Idk how people got that from this.

He’s is an asshole but there is a good chance KAT wouldn’t be where he is today without jimmy lighting the fire.

We just ignoring dragic and bams performances? Dragic outscored him vs the pacers ffs

KAT and Wiggins weren’t doing that as the best player.

Has this ever been about who’s the best player??

Still no ring

Jimmy is objectively the greater player

The NBA is about ring culture more than any other sport I can think of. It feels like Jimmy fans want to give the equivalent of a “Lifetime achievement” ring because he came real close, twice.

What’s weird AF to me is that Jimmy’s stats are pretty equivalent to KAT’s. KAT has a few more points and rebounds, Jimmy has 1.5 more assists and is a much worse shooter. It’s like people have decided that 2nd place Jimmy deserves first place credit.

I tend to agree. I also think without Jimmy challenging them Wiggins and KAT dont become the guys they became.

I think Kat may be passing him soon in legacy. Kat is not the bus driver, but may be the best guy on the knicks talent wise. Still needs Brunson to drive though.

Dragging those teams to the Finals were incredibly impressive. But the problem is the goal is to win a championship. I have no doubt about his ability to bring his game up in the playoff. But if he can’t get along with teammates and squander an opportunity to win a championship, that’s also on him. Maybe with the right teammates he could have won one, but that’s speculation, not reality. Reality is Jimmy had KAT and he couldn’t win. Reality is KAT did win without Jimmy, so you can’t tell me KAT was the problem.

You can argue Jimmy is a better 1st option than KAT as a 1st option. But Jimmy as a 1st option couldn’t win. So I’m not looking at either of them as 1st options. I’m looking at them as 2nd options. 2nd option KAT has a championship and Jimmy has a toxic personality that could potentially ruin the locker room.

More impressive in a vacuum but the ring is the bigger accomplishment, so it’s less a value judgement and more of a karmic justice kind of thing

As a Wolves fan, I can admit that Jimmy has been the better individual player of all three of them. And yes, his greatest accomplishment is dragging those underdog teams to the finals.

I think the thing to look at is not just how much of a chode Jimmy was to those guys, but the fact that he specially said (according to Teague), “I can’t win with those guys.”

Wigs and KAT proved they can be important pieces on championship teams during their prime.

Jimmy took a look at them after a season and instead of trying to mold, shape, mentor or just drag them along, got too pissed off that they made more than he did and quite in them. And went on to not only quit on them, but embarrass them and their coach to levels that made them laughing stocks among the league and its fans.

Thats’s a whole other level of ass-hattery than being just a “chode.” He was intent on destroying everyone’s careers. It’s one of the most egotistical, selfish, borderline-narcissistic things I’ve ever seen a player do.

Thibs always said that Jimmy was going to get the big extension the following summer, and chances are they would’ve traded Wiggins that season anyway to make cap space for Jimmy and not have such a log jam between the two of them on the wing.

The one thing I will say to Jimmy’s credit, is that Thibs backed him into that corner. If Thibs had traded him in the summer like Jimmy requested (or Wigs), then all of that would’ve been avoided. A lot of the blame rests in Thibs shoulders for not listening, and seemingly not trying to bring Jimmy around to try and mentor the kids instead of just quitting on them (that’s basically from the accounts at the time that Thibs basically ignored the problem). It was also a monumental fuckup by Thibs in that it completely ruined Jimmy’s trade value.

It was in the east though. To win you at least have to go through the west for one series. The west spanked those heat teams

Jimmy only got there because his role players stepped up. He did his usual thing and would’ve been a second round out if they didn’t.

So what?

You arent giving Spo nearly enough credit here. Id say it was just as much a coach carry job too.

Both are not even the definitive 2nd best player on their teams. OG on the Knicks and Klay/Dray on the Warriors were just as impactful.

If Butler in either of his final runs was in Wiggins spot on the Warriors in that title run, the Warriors dominate the playoffs.

KAT plays a pretty unique role on the Knicks, so idk if Butler replicates that success. But I think he would still win a title with them due to how dominant the Knicks were.

Rather a 2nd best that wins me a chip, than a best that can never finish.

Nobody remembers the “almost” champion.

Jimmy is a great player. Jimmy also has an ego the size of Jupiter that has and will continue to hinder his career.

No one in this comment exchange is saying that’s not true.

What is true is that Jimmy played with KAT and Wiggins and literally flew a reporter in to cry about how his teammates aren’t winning players/don’t want it and then those same players went on to other teams in the exact same roles they had with him and won championships.

Yeah man that’s cool or whatever, but the point is Jimmy Butler tried to start a narrative that Towns was soft and not a winning player purely to boost up his own self image on his way out of Minnesota.

Jimmy was wrong, and he’s a dick.

Yes but Jimmy is a bitch, have you considered that?

It’s not about who’s better. Just happy that the whiner (and massive foulbaiter) didn’t win a ring while those guys did.

Jimmy never made back to back finals in his career.

Jimmy’s had a special run in ‘23 but he wasn’t the only reason they went to the finals.

Bam covered a lot of jimmy’s mistakes and Jimmy was hobbled. Bam deserves just as much credit

He’s always been a head case and dysfunctional. His own worst enemy and he has an empty trophy case to show for it.

back to back ?

still is?

ya lmfao he’s not that dude

I’d hardly say kat got carried by all time great players…

I don’t think KAT was carried, and certainly not by all time players, after the first 3 games he was looking like a pretty serious candidate for FMVP

Back to back seasons?

Jimmy has demonstrated over and over, on every team he’s been on, that he is absolutely not a leader.

What I hear in this comment is Jalen Brunson is an all-time great player, so I can live with that

Found Jimmy’s burner

What all time great players are on the Knicks? Brunson is an amazing player, and he’ll probably end up in the HOF, but he’s placed 12th, 5th, and 10th in MVP voting and he’s not getting any younger.

Jimmy Butler was the 4th leading scorer in that famous Heat vs Celtics series to make the Finals.

He had 4 other teammates in double figures the previous round vs the Bucks. Dragic with 19 ppg to Jimmy’s 23 ppg that series.

First round vs the Pacers? Dragic was the leading scorer. 23 ppg to Jimmy’s 19 ppg

When did Jimmy start carrying the Heat? Which series?

Jimmy has also shown that if he’s the best player on the team, they lose. Then he blames his team for not being good enough.

He wants to be the best guy on the team and he wants to win. He’s proven, repeatedly, he’s not that guy.

Jimmy didn’t carry shit Spo did. Jimmy’s had multiple teams with more talent than he had in Miami and he couldn’t replicate his success.

This statement is categorically false lol. He never took teams to the finals in back to back years. He did in 2020 and then three seasons later in 2023.

Jimmy Butler is not better than KAT. He is a perennial loser who talks like he has 3 rings. He has no relevence, nothing unique about him, and will fade away into obscurity.

Oh well. No ring.

Edit: this is also a point my Knicks friends make to all the Pacers fans now. Hali did the choke sign. Legendary run! Who has a ring? That’s what’s good here. Jimmy “you need me” Butler didn’t win. KAT did. Facts. Pacers beat Knicks and went to the finals on some Legendary run. Nice. Knicks still have a ring. Jimmy had nice runs. Oh well. He can’t say a fucking thing to KAT. Go rehab that injury and open a coffee shop in the bay.

Consider: fuck Bummy Jitler

Hahahahahahaha oh man that’s rich coming from a fresh finals loser. Let me guess, what wemby did is more impressive than what Brunson did too?

Remind me which all time great carried KAT?

Aside from Brunson being all time great or not (he is not, great player though), I hate this “being carried” discourse among MVP fans. Not being the leader or being led by a great player does not mean being carried. Without Towns, Knicks wouldn’t even be in the finals and it is not like a role that might be replaced easily with another player. Hell, even role players might be the difference. There is a chance that GSW wouldn’t win without Wiggins if they weren’t replacing his D on that finals. Not like Towns for sure, replaceable, but still. This is still a team sports in a highly competitive league and all the pieces matter. And Towns was not any piece. I appreciate players like Towns playing just their role perfectly as much as (if not more) players that drag mediocre teams but have issues about being a team player one way or other.

Rings, Erneh

Cool, no ring.

Carried all those teams into losses.

He didn’t win though. No one is going to remember in Butler, Towns, or Wiggins 10 years after their careers are over but the later two will be champions and Jimmy won’t be.

But no one is saying Wiggins is better than Butler lol it’s more about how Jimmy would throw them under the bus saying how they’re not a winning players compared to him but now both of them have rings and he doesn’t

Probably, or maybe Jimmy gets hurt, or causes chemistry/play style issues.

All we know for certain is that it worked with wiggins and butler doesn’t have a ring

What’s the point of this comment? No one is saying that Wiggins is a better player than Jimmy.

On average they would likely be better but its no way a guarantee that’s giving up a lot of size and athleticism on a size depleted team for an injury prone guy

He would have punched Poole before Draymond and blow up the team. He is cancer. Thats it.

There is more than just basketball skills to be a winner. And Jimmy Butler is a loser.

Don’t agree.

Butler is of course overall a better player than Wiggins, but most of his advantages come from his ability to be the first offensive option and to create shots for himself in a way that Wiggins has never been able to do. But Wiggins is a better outside shooter, and is more athletic than Jimmy. Butler would have been less effective against Tatum and Brown than Wiggins. In the role that Wiggins played on that Warriors team, I don’t think Butler would have been better. He would have thrown off the spacing, not been quite as good a defender against who the Warriors needed to defend (he wouldn’t have been bad, just not quite as good), and had most of his advantages over Wiggins wasted.

Between Jordan and Kobe this perception that you have to be a psychotic asshole to win at the highest level is more pervasive in NBA fandom than in any other sport, but even then it’s been contradicted so many times.

Magic Johnson was a perfectly normal teammate, so was Tim Duncan, Giannis, Shai, Hakeem, take your pick.

Difference, Kobe won. Winning is the ultimate cure all. Michael Jordan punched team mates. No one cares. People still obsess on Kobe because he won, and won a lot.

Didn’t he ignore Jeremy for 5 months just because he wanted the ball late and Lin didn’t give it to him.

Imagine doing that petty shit as a grown-ass man.

Oldheads call the newer generation soft just because they aren’t problematic assholes who can put themselves in a proper competitive headspace without having to be a jackass.

MJ and Kobe were a-holes but they have 6 and 5 respectively.

Can’t be an a-hole if you have zero.

Same with MJ. Everyone thinks his behavior was awesome because they won championships, as if there’s no way you can be a decent person and still win. Dude was an asshole.

People obsess over Kobe because he won, in LA, and played there his whole life it’s not rocket science. We made Austin Reaves famous when he wasn’t even good imagine a guy who can win 5 rings.

Was Kobe a POS to teammates? Yeah most likely. Would him and MJ be this successful without being sociopaths? Probably not. Kobe is similar to Ronaldo where obviously he’s gifted but his psycho drive took him to levels he shouldn’t have reached and honestly I respect it.

Nah, he was an asshole that can win. That’s why we like him.

If you’re an asshole and dont win, then you’re just an asshole.

I used to hate Kobe until I read this Simmons piece about him, I just re-read it in full again after finding it

https://grantland.com/features/the-kobe-question/

And now people use this against LeBron

They say LeBron is too nice and doesn’t have killer instinct because he’s not knocking out the smallest guy on his team like MJ did

People forget Kobe raped at least two women that we know about.

It’s not the working hard part that people slobber over, it’s the “being a dick to everyone without consequences” part.

“

unfortunately if you give off the vibe of working extra hard people respect your actions regardless of how much of an asshole you are to everyone around you

”

Sounds a lot like CEOs as well.

It’s almost like he showed this type of behavior before in Chicago when we had the three alphas bullshit with him wade and rondo where him and Wade were buddy buddy just shitting on the young kids and it was Rondo who took them under his wing and was like look these are kids you gotta teach, not shit on.

Genuinely, the dysfunction was already there. He just list the fuse.

The owner at the time was notoriously cheap, with things like facilities, staff size, the arena, etc. regularly neglected. Thibs was a good on-court coach but was not equipped, at all, to manage personalities — particularly strong ones like Jimmy’s, and young players like KAT and Wiggins. He and then-GM Scott Layden (who reported to Thibs) did not seem to have a long-term salary cap plan or vision for ongoing success.

The organization was not in a stable, strong spot. Jimmy wasn’t wrong to sense that and be wary about the years ahead in Minnesota, tbh.

But the way he went about it, blowing everything up, was quite over-the-top.

Saw online he went 2-11 vs the wolves after he left. No wonder he was sitting out games against them. And then he gets 4-1’d by the wolves in the playoffs before getting to watch KAT win a ring. Priceless

KAT was also the 1b on that team and legitimately the only reason we weren’t in the basement after Jimmy got injured. If Jimmy came out and said Wiggins and Teague suck, everyone would have agreed with him and been fine if he wanted to move on because of it. But targeting the 22 year old all star averaging ²¹⁄₁₂ on 42% 3pt shooting was complete bullshit

If KAT had six lifetimes he’d never be half as good as prime Embiid

Yea I was gonna push back on that first paragraph a bit. When you’re the best player on the team you can make what you want of it to some degree. If he had just bought in and lead instead of doing what he did, that team could have flourished within a few years

They also would have been the 3 or 4 seed if Jimmy didn’t get injured that year. No team was in the same stratosphere as GS/HOU though

He also obviously prided himself on defense this year (and especially in the post season) in a way that I don’t think we’ve seen before

He was a top 10 rebounder in the league four times for us

Flaming the guy for shifting to the 4 and subsuming a ton of space to Rudy because he was a good teammate and friend, sacrificing for the team….well, your take certainly is another way to view what happened

Kat & Wiggins were talented yet selfish players who did not know how to win. Regardless of what you think of Butler he is a winning player and when he tried to bring them with him they thought they knew better.

I think the Butler episode made them better players as they matured.

Yup. This subreddit was cheering Jimmy on during the Minnesota fall out.

I always hear that KAT scored on Cousins just after that pic was taken

He also played like shit in his first playoff series vs Houston. The whole team failed, but as a promising young player he got a lot of scrutiny for that.

He is?

We got a hardcore redditor here to talk about athlete “softness”

rage bait used to be believable smh

We should be clear that Minnesota was intending to pay Butler the full max, he just demanded it a year before the CBA allowed them to offer it. His entire tantrum was due to not wanting to wait.

Jimmy is like the inverse-Kirk-Cousins

He always ends up getting paid, just goes about it wildly differently….and both of them have the same amount of rings

And you know what, some people say “oh being a dick is what makes good players great.” But I don’t know how you watch this Knick team win a championship pretty much entirely off liking and playing for each other and think that being a dickhead to your teammates is ideal.

Funny how the “tell it like it is” people never tell about the positive things as they are

Telling it like it is is also different than manufacturing that baby brained practice to setup a story for a journalist so you can blow up your own team. Hes a fake ass bitch

Kat was hated by the knickerbockers up until ECF. lol. Just go back on the thread, they wanted to trade him for a box of potatoes

I mean he did get fairly close to winning a ring and could have pulled it out barring injuries. I understand your sentiment but at the same time there are a lot of guys who attitude wise you’d think wouldn’t deserve one and yet have several

Rudy legit changed his game

He has shown improvement year over year… which makes it funny to me because the a lot of the criticism WAS legitimate.

Defending, playmaking, being overly passive…

Like do you remember when the Wolves blew a 26 PT lead to the Grizzlies in the playoffs and the “Best Shooting Big” took 4 shots???

KAT would never do that now.

…….flag?

Almost like they’re as human as the fans lol

“Listen to the pros if they agree with me, but if they don’t, they don’t know what they’re talking about” is another classic schtick

In and out five minute adventure

It’s a couple… with an open relationship.

Butler is a better player?

Maybe Wiggins, but KAT impacts the game in many more ways than Butler.

It’s always to get paid. He’s done it at every stop when he’s trying to get a contract.

And for the record, if he was just a mercenary who wanted to get paid I could respect that at some level, but he masked his desire for that big contract with his annoying Michael Jordan cosplay and the media completely ate it up.

Idk, wasn’t there the infamous practice where butler tried to prove a point to KAT by taking practcie squad guys and playing the first team with KAT on it? That is beyond a ploy imo, that’s borne out of some kind of malice.

At the time pretty much everyone was applauding Jimmy for being hard on them, as Minny was very dysfunctional, and neither KAT nor Wiggins seemed to be taking it very seriously. That was the perception here at least. But I’m glad it worked out for them, all three.

Yeah I won’t argue with that point, minnesota being so bad for so long made a lot of people sympathize with him though

Hes got a bit of Jordan in him and not just the good attributes

I agree, especially after his Miami stint.

Absolute diva behavior, but I won’t pretend like myself and 99% of other non-Wolves fans didn’t think it was hilarious

superpassed? Stay in school kid.

And KAT is soft

This ain’t horseshoes buddy

Kat was the Wemby nulifier. Easily the 2nd most important.

2020 was impressive but 2023 was a collective effort esp after Jimmy got hurt in round 2, Caleb Martin couldve easily won ECFMVP

KAT had the highest +/- in NBA history this postseason. Destroyed Wemby the first two games of the Finals to put the Knicks in position to close out the series.

3rd/4th? MAYBE in the finals, there is an argument, but the entire rest of the playoffs he was 1a 1b with Brunson in terms of impact.

Yeah, it’s not like the Knicks went on a historic run in the playoffs when the offense was specifically changed to give KAT more responsibilities.

If Brunson had a bad game the Knicks still routinely won. If KAT had a bad game the Knicks rarely won. IMO he is the most important player on that roster. Brunson gets love cause he puts up a lot of points but KAT is 100% the anchor of tha team.

Yet still no hardware 🤷‍♂️. Legacies are not defined by being a runner up.

Also 3rd/4th is a stretch. KAT is an all nba talent and one of the best shooting bigs of all time. The KAT disrespect got to stop

Rings, Erneh!

Give him a participation award, then.

KAT still won a championship

“If only everything went our way we wouldn’t have lost” lmfao get a grip buddy

Jimmy builds the block tower and then also chooses to knock it down.

Do you remember him on the bulls? Then the timberwolves? Then the 76ers? Then Miami? How you gonna try and argue he doesn’t ruin chemistry lol

I don’t care what he’s done, the whole wolves practice/rachel nichols fiasco is inexcusable. He should have to legally change his name to General Soreness, he’s a fuckin snake

Yeah but no one expected Jimmy to get that far and lead them to 2 finals. Again KAT has done a lot last yr to prove the doubters wrong, but Jimmy wasn’t wrong back then.

KAT also said in a podcast in 2023 that he and Jimmy were cool, although it might’ve just been one-sided

Who overrates Jimmy Butler? He’s an overachiever. He’s had a great career and a better player than Wiggins and KAT.

Knew I wasn’t going crazy. Butler’s like a tier 3 star and KAT is right around tier ²⁄₃ himself. Peeps are talking like Jimmy’s some untouchable great cuz they fooled by his “aura” and the memes lol.

I can also give Grace to a Knicks fan. You won your ring. Take the victory lap