Should Jimmy Butler have taken that 3? If you’ve read anything from this newsletter, you probably think I’m going to say Yes. But actually, I think the pro-labor position is that Butler should’ve done whatever he thinks he should’ve done.
It’s true that Butler’s not a great three-point shooter, and that there was nobody underneath to rebound for Miami. But if you get the ball in your best player’s hands with 15 seconds left, and a chance to win or tie the game… well, at that point, you’ve just gotta trust his judgment. Part of what makes basketball special is that players have to make decisions like that on the fly—they can’t just wait for a coach or manager to call the plays from the sideline. And the players need to make these calls based on their intuitive assessment of the game, as it rapidly changes second by second. Butler has more than proved his ability to make those split second decisions, and so who are any of us to second-guess him?
Of course, Butler might have regrets about his decision. He might’ve settled for the three because he didn’t think Miami had enough left for overtime, or because he saw Al Horford sagging off him, baiting him to shoot. And he might wish he could do that again… In that case, I wouldn’t question him. At a certain point, you just need to let the players play.
Anyway, I was travelling some of this month, so not much new from Undrafted, but here’s what we did publish:
It’s a little funny how quickly this patchwork, half-baked NIL situation has proved to be completely unworkable.
We recorded this before the finale, but James and I broke down the weird vibes of HBO’s show on the Showtime Lakers. It remains a mystery why they focused so much on Jerry Buss…
Since I wrote this, about the way baseball has evolved to churn through relief pitchers and then discard them once they’re about to reach free agency, the Yankees announced that Chad Green needs Tommy John surgery and will miss the rest of the season. He was, not coincidentally, about to hit the free agent market. This really does seem like a looming crisis for baseball.
My feelings about the Warriors team have been complicated since 2016. This was an attempt to work through that….