The Philadelphia 76ers are 26-14 heading into Tuesday night and experiencing their best start since Allen Iverson's prime, and yet they're never short of controversy. Whether it's Markelle Fultz's shoulder, Joel Embiid's offensive usage or Jimmy Butler's demeanor, something often seems to overshadow the fact that the team is very good, and getting better.
Butler is the latest to hit the headlines after ESPN reported this past weekend that some witnesses felt he was "disrespectful" towards Brett Brown during a recent film session in Portland.
Butler, Brown and the Sixers are downplaying the severity. But, regardless of what's going on behind closed doors with one-third of the 76ers "Big 3," as long as they win and he signs a long term contract, and they continue to be successful, then it quite frankly doesn't matter what kind of basketball conversations they're getting into. That being sad, it's very bizarre how this came out of no where, despite Butler's reputation from his previous stops. Since arriving in December, Butler has come off as a very personable, fun loving and energetic guy, who seemed to fit the team's competitive culture very well. That still appears to be the case, but Butler's tone was a tad more serious after Monday's practice when addressing his supposed "confrontation" with Brown for the first time publicly.
"I don't think anything's a confrontation," Butler said after Monday's practice. "I just think whenever we talk, whether it be in the office and it's me and him, or in front of everybody else, I'm going to speak my mind like he speaks his and I think everybody else does a great job of doing that too. I don't think any part of (the film session) was confrontational. It was just a player to coach talk, coach to player talk. It just so happened to be in front of everybody. I think we got away from it great and we got better as a team. Me and his relationship is growing everyday. I didn't find any part of confrontation in that."
Brown agrees, calling the story by Adrian Wojnarowski and Ramona Shelburne, two of the most plugged-in NBA Insiders, "overrated." The head coach said he often asks players their opinions, and usually doesn't get much in return because of certain personalities. But, that's not the case with Butler, who's vocal and wants to win, badly. Brown is perfectly fine with that.
"It's never been walking on egg shells, ever," Brown said. "Not ever. And if it was, as I said, I would deal with it.
"It's just 2018 that you got to coach. It doesn't mean you accept. It doesn't mean that you absorb. It doesn't mean that something that is challenging is disrespectful. It's not that. It's not that at all to me. And this is how you talk to your wife, to your friends, it's just I like confrontation, provided it's done with a level of respect. And I think confrontation brings people together, provided that it's done respectfully and it's real. And so, I like the dialogue."
It's interesting how Brown embraced the term "confrontation," while Butler used the word in negative fashion. Regardless, Brown wants the feedback and Butler wants to provide some. They've been talking for several days now as they continue to try to develop an elite program that can win the Eastern Conference with Butler, Embiid and Ben Simmons. There's really no problem with that as long as it doesn't cross the line or cause losses, which in turn might lead to a very brief tenure with the 76ers.
Butler could opt-out at the end of the season to get a max contract. Losing Butler for nothing would make the Minnesota trade a bad one because not only would the Sixers employ Butler for a short period of time, but they would give up two starters under decent contractual control in the process, no pundit intended.
"You ask some really good questions man," Butler said with a smile when asked if the Sixers are a team he wants to be with for the long term. "I'm going to have to go home and work on that. Yeah, I could see it. I'm happy here right now, man. I could tell you that. But, winning takes care of everything. The second that we drop a couple in a row, you all will be in here like some vultures trying to pick at whatever it is you all are going to pick at. But, I think right now as long as we keep winning, everybody's happy."
Is everybody happy? While you could easily take Butler and Brown at their words that the film session wasn't an issue, at least one person didn't like what was going on, whether it was someone directly or loosely associated with the team. The leak needed to come from somewhere, as Wojnarowski and Shelburne don't make things up.
"Man, I don't know (why that report came out)," Butler said. "I'm mean if you're sitting in there you may have a different look on anything that the next guy may have. So because nobody's been around me that much, the way that we talk about something, it may not be the way you talk about it. But, I'm not going to say that anybody's confrontational. I think, for the most part, I did a lot of the talking just because I feel like I'm a vocal person, especially on how much I study the film and how much I study the game. I think that's what it may be like. He would talk, I would talk, he would talk, I would talk and do, if you were in there, you may see it a different way as well."
Somebody clearly wasn't fond of Butler's tone, and as a result found means to paint a negative picture of the four-time All Star shortly before the Sixers start a grueling schedule in the middle of January. It's not uncommon in our society for a person to be incorrectly perceived based on misunderstandings or difference in philosophies. But, it would behoove the Sixers, an organization not immune to soap operas, to avoid them with their best players.
"I think everybody views everything from a different perspective," Butler said. "Just because I speak my mind and it's what I feel is the truth, if I'm wrong, anybody can correct me. I'm just trying to help win, man. I don't know if you want me to say please after every remark or not have voice as deep, but I'm telling you all I'm doing is speaking the game of basketball. It'd be different if I was going at somebody saying cuss words, making it personal and this and that, making demands, but that's not what I'm doing. I'm just out here trying to hoop."
Jimmy Butler likes that he's able have conversations with Brett Brown, even if Brown didn't ask for his opinion on something #Sixers pic.twitter.com/JPQ4T7cjwW
— Dave Uram (@MrUram) January 7, 2019The ESPN story claims Butler wants more traditional pick-and-rolls, but Butler denies that being the gist of the film conversation, insisting it was more geared towards defense, and he was actually critical of himself rather than others because he's learning new concepts and terminology. Thus, it's become a case of conflicting accounts, with Butler sharing a different perspective of the situation than Wojnarowski's and Shelburne's sources.
In the end, this momentary blip on the Sixers season can easily go away if the team goes on a run, the "Big 3" play well and everybody's smiling. Butler won't let another negative story about him bother him, and he hopes that's the case for the rest of the franchise.
"Obviously, everybody wants to tell me about what's going on," Butler said. "I mean I can't help what people think. I go back to what I always say, people are going to like me, great. People are going to dislike me, ok, but I can't control that. I can only control who I am, who I know I am, what the people around here think and know me to be, and then try to be the best basketball player I can be out there on the court. So, some of them pay attention to it when, I'm telling you, you all aren't going to be talking about that no more. We just got to keep winning. Win three, four, five in a row, you are all going to be like 'ah, we on a win streak now.' You're not going to worry about anything that happened in a film session."
Ah, but there's one problem, Jimmy. You've won three in a row, four out of five and seven out of 10, yet we're still talking about what happened in a film session.
