Boston Celtics guard Derrick White’s father Richard trolled Miami Heat star Jimmy Butler on X (previously known as Twitter) by posting a picture of him and the younger White holding the Eastern Conference Finals trophy, otherwise known as the Bob Cousy Trophy.
The elder White is referencing when Butler told Bam Adebayo he’ll “hold the next one” when the Heat were celebrating their victory after Game 7 of the 2023 Eastern Conference Finals against the Celtics and receiving that season’s Bob Cousy trophy.
But unlike the Celtics — who defeated the Dallas Mavericks in five games in the 2024 NBA Finals — the 2022-23 iteration of the Heat never went on to capture the most treasured hardware in the league in the Larry O’Brien Trophy.
Butler and the Heat fell to Nikola Jokic, Jamal Murray and the Denver Nuggets in a gentleman’s sweep in the 2023 championship series after eliminating the younger White’s Celtics in the conference finals. To add insult to injury, Butler did not live up to his playoff reputation when the lights were at their brightest.
After averaging more than 24 points per game in each of Miami’s first three series of the 2023 NBA Playoffs, Butler dropped his scoring average to just 21.6 points per contest against Denver. He didn’t even lead the Heat in scoring during the championship series, considering Adebayo averaged a team-high 21.8 points per game.
Plus, Butler didn’t score the ball at a very efficient rate for Miami. He converted just 41.3 percent of his shots from the field for the series and shot better than 50 percent from the floor in just one of the five games, with that performance coming in Miami’s Game 4 loss at home.
Considering how many times the Heat and Celtics have faced off against each other in the playoffs in recent years, a rivalry has seemingly developed between the two teams, and it will be compelling to see if or how Miami responds to the elder White’s troll job on social media.