What had typically been a time reserved for Jimmy Butler to ratchet up his efforts ahead of the playoffs instead, last season, was a time for grieving.
As revealed in episodes five and six of Netflix’s series Starting 5, Butler’s father, Jimmy Butler Jr., passed away due to medical issues while at Mount Sinai Medical Center in Miami Beach in February.
Butler visited his father on Feb. 7 and fixed the TV in his hospital room so that he could watch the Miami Heat’s game against the San Antonio Spurs that night. The Heat were three games over .500 at the time and pushing for a spot in the playoffs. Butler finished with 17 points, 11 rebounds and 11 assists for his first triple-double of the season.
Jimmy Butler struggled at the end of the season as he grieved the passing of his father
After the game, Butler wrote the date, signed his signature on his shoes, and went back to the hospital to give them to his dad. Before leaving, Butler asked the doctor if he thought his dad would be alive when he got back from a wedding, but the doctor couldn’t give Butler an answer.
Butler then boarded a plane and, around 1 o'clock in the morning on Feb. 8, received a text from his agent, Bernie Lee, asking if he had landed yet.
“I was like, ‘Nobody ever texts me when I’m in the air, ‘Have I landed yet?’,” Butler said. “So that’s when I knew my dad had passed. It’s crazy that that triple-double was the last game that my dad was alive.”
Two weeks before the All-Star break, Butler was grieving the loss of his father off the court during a season that ultimately ended in disappointment on the court.
In Miami’s first game back from the break, Butler got into a brawl with several players during the Heat’s game against the New Orleans Pelicans.
“Athletes are human, too. We hurt and we cry and we grieve and we’re angry when something is going on in our life,” Butler said. “And you can’t see it, just like we can’t see what’s going on in your life either.”
Butler struggled to flip the switch to playoff mode in the final weeks and months of the season. By every indication, he tried to. He told Bleacher Report in March that he’s “just different” because of his ability to “turn into the greatest basketball player in the world all of a sudden.”
Despite the public bravado, Starting 5 makes it clear that Butler was struggling to find motivation to be at his best on the court.
“Right after All-Star break, my teammates, they really need me to be a lot better. I wanna always answer to that call,” Butler said. “But I couldn’t care less about basketball right now. I don’t care. … It sucks to hurt. It sucks to lose people.”
After the triple-double against the Spurs, Butler did not record another triple-double and scored 30 points only twice over Miami’s final 24 games of the season. The Heat ended up in the play-in tournament, where Butler sprained his MCL in an accidental play against the Philadelphia 76ers. He was sidelined for the Heat’s first-round loss to the Celtics.
This revelation explains why Butler understandably didn't seem as interested in the Heat’s season, even during the playoff push. Butler was hurting off the court and was distracted by the loss of someone he was close to. When Butler’s father was alive, he spent a lot of time with Butler at his house and sitting courtside for games.
As Butler said, “I didn’t know what to do. No amount of money in the world could bring him back. Basketball, no matter how much I played it, it couldn’t fix that.”
Watch Starting 5 only on Netflix.