Miami Heat star Jimmy Butler’s agent, Bernard Lee, penned a confident message regarding his client on X after a fan commented on how well the veteran played in the NBA bubble several years ago.
In his first season in Miami, Butler put the team on his back and led the Heat to an appearance in the 2020 NBA Finals.
The now 34-year-old did a bit of everything on both ends of the floor for Miami during its deep playoff run, as he averaged 22.2 points, 6.5 rebounds, 6.0 assists, 2.0 steals and 0.7 blocks per contest while shooting 48.8 percent from the field and 34.9 percent from 3-point range in 21 appearances.
Butler also had perhaps his best series of the 2020 NBA Playoffs in Miami’s most important series, the NBA Finals. The Heat were eliminated by LeBron James, Anthony Davis and the Los Angeles Lakers in six games, but Miami gave Los Angeles a real run for its money thanks to the wing’s performance in the championship series.
The former Marquette University star averaged 26.2 points, 8.3 rebounds and 9.8 assists per game on 55.2 percent shooting from the floor versus Los Angeles.
Fast forward three years to the 2023 NBA Playoffs, and Butler once again put together a memorable individual playoff run and led the Heat to the NBA Finals. For as impressive as Butler’s numbers were in the 2020 NBA Playoffs, some of his numbers were even better during Miami’s run to the NBA Finals in 2023, when the team was the No. 8 seed in the Eastern Conference.
Butler averaged 26.9 points per game across 22 appearances during the playoff run in 2023.
But more recently, the Heat were eliminated by the Boston Celtics in the first round of the 2024 NBA Playoffs. Butler suffered an MCL injury shortly before the start of the playoffs and missed the entirety of the series.
Even though Butler didn’t have an opportunity to light up the NBA once again in the 2024 NBA Playoffs, his level of play in last year’s playoffs suggests that he remains among the league’s elite clutch performers.