Stacked with talent and a winning culture, the Miami Heat have become a dominant force in the Eastern Conference.
Besides guys like Kyle Lowry and Tyler Herro, it’s Jimmy Butler who gives the team its identity and helps keep them going through the course of a long, 82 game season.
On the court, Butler wears his heart on his sleeve and goes all-in from tip-off to the final buzzer. In the locker room, Bam Adebayo (with a smile on his face) described him as an a**hole.
(via The Old Man & The Three)
“We kinda embraced who Jimmy was. We knew Jimmy was an a**hole at the end of the day. We all know that. But, like, this culture embraces that. We want you to bring that a**holeness out so then on the court we got all five people that are like dogs. We want all five of y’all to be a**holes cause at that point, y’all not gonna take no sh*t and we not backing down from anybody.”
Miami Heat culture has become a pretty famous phenomenon. In today’s basketball world, players change teams like they change clothes, and player “rivalries” are becoming more common than ever in the locker room.
The attitude implemented in Miami is all about sticking together and facing any challenge head-on. For some, it’s the best way to succeed in the NBA — and for others, it’s not all it’s cracked up to be.
“I think here, partly what you’re running into here is there’s a reason that Jimmy Butler and Tom Thibodeau have always been two peas in a pod,” said Sam Amick about Heat culture. “On the coaching side, what do we say about Thibs? Year two, year three, it gets tough. What do we say about the Heat? Year two, year three, it gets tough. What do we say about Jimmy? Year two, year three, it gets tough. So you just have a lot of pressure in that Heat locker room that’s easy to predict.”
No matter how you feel about Butler, the Heat, or their controversial code, the results speak for themselves.
In the past three seasons, the Heat have been among the best teams in basketball, making the Finals in 2020 and the playoffs in 2021 before entering this postseason as the first seed in the East.
Butler, who is on his fourth team now, has found a long-term home in Miami and that really says a lot about how what kind of group they want to be.
