The Herd with Colin Cowherd - Hoops Tonight - Jimmy Butler to Warriors Reaction: Steph Curry & Golden State ready for playoff run?

Episode Date: February 6, 2025

Jason Timpf reacts to the Golden State Warriors trading with the Miami Heat for star guard Jimmy Butler. Jason breaks down how Jimmy will solve many of the problems facing Golden State and discusses whether the pairing with Steph Curry is enough to lift the Warriors into championship contention. Later, Jason discusses why the return offer of Andrew Wiggins, Dennis Schroder, Kyle Anderson, and a first-round pick was the perfect outcome for the Miami Heat. Timeline: 4:15 - Introduction 5:30 - Warriors trade for Jimmy Butler 10:00 - How Jimmy fits with Golden State 18:30 - Perfect outcome for Heat #Volume #Herd Follow Jason Timpf on social: https://twitter.com/_JasonLT https://www.instagram.com/jtimpf15/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Heavy Wednesday, everybody. Hope all of you guys are having a great week. Well, the Golden State Warriors finally got a secondary star for Steph Curry. Jimmy Butler has been traded from the Miami Heat to the Bay. We're going to be breaking down that deal from the perspective of both teams. I'm also working on a bigger trade deadline reaction that I planned on doing tonight, but I'm actually pushing until tomorrow morning. We want to talk Fox to the Spurs, Levine to the Bulls.

I want to talk Coosma to the Bucks. I have more thoughts on Luca to the Lakers and just whether or not they should feel some more urgency in the short term. I'm going to get into all of that in tomorrow morning's episode tonight, just hitting Jimmy to the Warriors. You guys know the drill before we started. Subscribe to the Hoops Tonight YouTube channels. You don't miss any more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter at underscore Jason LT so you guys don't miss show announcements. Don't forget about a podcast fee wherever you get your podcast under Hoops tonight.

It's also super helpful if you leave a rating and a review on that front. We also have brand new social media feeds on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook or releasing content throughout the year. Make sure you guys follow us there. And last minute least, keep dropping mailback questions in the YouTube comments so that we can hit them on Fridays throughout the remainder of the year. All right, let's talk some basketball. So there's still a bunch of details getting worked out. But from what I can tell, the Warriors are getting Jimmy Butler. Jimmy's agreed to a two-year, $121 million contract extension as part of the deal.

The heat are getting Andrew Wiggins and PJ Tucker. Looks like maybe Kyle Anderson, it looked like he was originally heading to the rafters, but now he's not. They're also getting a protected first round pick. There are some other moving parts. It looks like Dennis Schroeder is getting rerouted to the Jazz. Lindy Waters is getting rerouted to the pistons, I think. Not sure where Kyle Anderson is going. It looks like he might stay with the heat.

But the gist of it is, Wiggins in a protected first round pick to the heat, Jimmy Butler to the Golden State Warriors. The Warriors finally did it. They finally brought in a legit secondary star to play alongside Steph Curry. There's been this weird energy surrounding the Warriors all year, one that I've disagreed with and that I've pushed back with a pushback against a lot on this show, which is that they're just a bad team. And I've watched a lot of bad NBA teams.

And to me, the Warriors aren't one of them. They're well-coached. They play super hard. They're led by a top 15 player in the league. They have top 10 defense. They're super deep with role player talent. I was looking at this earlier. With the recent play of Guy Santos and Quentin Post,

I've counted 15 different players this year, that have played quality minutes for the Warriors at various times during the year. You can actually push that up to 16 if you want to count DeAnthony Milton. They've reached some really high highs. According to cleaning the glass, they have 11 wins this year against teams that are in the top 10 in point differential. That's a third most in the entire NBA. They have a win against the Celtics.

They have two wins against the Houston Rockets. They have two wins against the Memphis Grizzlies. They have two wins against Oklahoma City Thunder. But there's a through line. There's a consistency in that story. In all but one of those wins against Boston, Houston, Memphis, and Oklahoma City, and all but one of them, they scored at least 115 points. They can beat anybody, but they have to score the basketball.

In fact, here's another crazy stat for you. The Warriors are 26 this year when they score at least 110 points. Not 120, not some crazy high number. When they hit just a baseline of 110 points, 20 and 6, they are 5 and 18 when they fail to score 110 points. when the Warriors score they can beat anyone. But the problem is they only have one reliably good offensive player on the entire roster. That's Steph Curry.

And yes, his production has been inconsistent this year, but he still gets guarded like Steph Curry. So even on the nights where Steph isn't hitting shots and isn't putting up the numbers he normally puts up, he's still regularly impacting the game offensively in a positive way every single night because of his gravity, because of the way he's guarded. everyone else is like a maybe they'll have it tonight kind of guy, right? Buddy Healed has shot 25% or worse from three in 22 games this year. Andrew Wiggins has hit 20 points 17 times,

but he's failed to hit 15 points 13 times. So there's a lot of good Wiggins and there's a lot of games where he just doesn't bring anything offensively. And Jonathan Cominga has been just as likely to score 20 or more in a game this year as he is to score 12 or fewer. That's inconsistent. But that's not their fault. We've never considered Buddy Heal to be this consistently good offensive player.

We've never considered Andrew Wiggins to be a legit second option. Outside of that one year that him and Jordan Poole kind of combined to fill that role when they won the title. Jonathan Combinge is 22 years old. It's completely irrational to expect those guys to be consistent producers on the offensive end of the floor. All of those guys are being asked to do something that's frankly above their pay grade. They're role players. And role players are always going to have dramatic highs and lows when it comes to like the grind of the regular season

because the consistently great offensive players are not role players, they're stars. And yeah, on the nights when all those guys play well and they hit their shots, they have a top 10 defense and they're led by Steph Curry. So yeah, they can beat anybody. That's why I was clamoring for this type of deal. You have this short little window here where you have Steph Curry on your team, a generational talent that you might never have again. You might literally never have this guy again.

Think about the way the Luca Donchage trade was discussed over the course of the last few days. You want to know why Mavs fans were pissed? They're like, we might never have a player like Luca Donchich ever again in the history of the franchise. And they feel like they punted him. Obviously, a little bit different circumstance in terms of the timeline.

But the point is, is like, you have one of those guys in Steph Curry. You might never have that guy again or anything even close to him, potentially. You don't just get to have top-tier superstars. How many of them are there in this league? Four, maybe five? They're exceedingly rare. You had to give him a fighting shot.

At least give him a chance. Even though it was risky, even though it cost you a draft pick, you were destined for a rebuild after this era anyway. You might as well go out with Steph playing in meaningful basketball games while you still get to enjoy Steph playing in meaningful basketball games. Let's start with the Jimmy Butler angle on this first. And then we'll talk about the rest of the roster.

Jimmy hasn't played in the playoffs since 2023 because of that fluky injury he suffered in the playing game, if you guys remember. But he was a consensus top 10 player in the league at that point. And he's kind of uniquely viewed as one of the few guys in the league that raises his level of play when he gets to the postseason. I've talked about this before. It's a very simple set of circumstances in my opinion. He's big, strong and fast, which means as things get more intense athletically, he can thrive in that set of. and then he's super versatile, meaning whatever the challenge is that's presented him, he can kind of shape shift and fill different roles to whatever his team needs.

And as a result, he just has a higher floor. You can change whatever he needs for that specific matchup. So there's less situations where his talent doesn't match up, and more situations where his talent does match up to the circumstances. And so he's able to play well. Now, he had this ugly falling out with the Miami Heat, and that's classic Jimmy. We've seen it before.

but I expect him to come into Golden State and immediately locked back in as a member of the team. And just, before we get into some of the fit, it's just real talent upside. He's still probably one of the top 15 players in the league you'd want to have on your team in a playoff series. That's an automatic influx of talent. So now let's talk about his fit with the team.

He's going to have to immediately fill two roles. He's going to have to fill that Andrew Wiggins role of that primary perimeter defender, but he's also going to have to fill that Dennis Shreveh. Trotter role in terms of the guy that's got to be their secondary shot crater when Steph is on the floor and have to lead units when Steph is off the floor. He's going to have to be their primary perimeter defensive weapon against the wings of the Western Conference. Now, he is capable of that.

Like, guys, his last playoff series that he played in was in the finals. And in game two, he was like the only guy I watched in that playoff run that actually made Jamal Murray look uncomfortable. The job he did chasing over the top, Jimmy and Bam together actually managing to beat that Denver team once when no one else seemed to be able to beat him, right, except for Phoenix. So like, we've seen him doing it, an excellent job guarding players on the perimeter in the playoffs. I think in the regular season, he'll be a slight downgrade from Andrew Wiggins,

but in high leverage spots, he's still one of the best defensive players in the league. But then he's also going to have to fill that shot creation role that Dennis filled. This is where I view him as a massive upgrade. like Andrew Wiggins, I view in such high esteem on the defensive end of the floor. And a big part of Andrew's, a big part of Jimmy's ability to make this trade worth it will be his ability to fill the shoes that Andrew Wiggins leaves open on the defensive end of the floor. But I do think Jimmy has that talent and that ability. It's more just about commitment and his willingness to do that amount of work.

But I think at least in a postseason context, it's something that I think Jimmy's going to be able to live up to. I think he's just a massive upgrade over any sort of offensive weapon that this team had. Last year, he was one of the best matchup attacking players in the NBA. Of the 24 players who ran at least 300 ISOs last year, he ranked third in efficiency at 1.13 points per possession, including passes. He was over a point for possession on almost 200 post-ups. He was over 50%, or just under 50%, excuse me, on floaters and hooks. Very gifted passer.

Similar to what I was talking about earlier with Steph, even on the nights when Steph isn't hitting shots, he's still creating shots with the way that he's guarded. Jimmy Butler last year had 15 games with at least seven assists. Andrew Wiggins has had 14 such games in his entire career. That's how much of a playmaking upgrade. Jimmy Butler is over Andrew Wiggins. It will help them offensively in every single way.

It'll give them the best two-man game they've had since Kevin Durant was on the team. Again, any sort of action involving Steph and Jimmy is going to present defenses with a lot of problems because the kind of guy who's quick enough and attentive enough to guard Steph is very different than the big kind of like Ford you need to deal with the guy like Jimmy Butler. So any sort of action between the two of them, Jimmy screens for Steph, they're going to have to put two on the ball. Now Jimmy's going to be open. You've got a four on three being led by a very, very good offensive player better than anybody else that's on the roster at this point,

right? Jimmy has the ball. Steph screens for him. They don't switch to stay with Steph. Jimmy's going to go right downhill, rip to the basket for a dunk. If they leave Steph to put two on Jimmy, Steph's going to be wide open pop into the three point line. And now, if Steph and Jimmy run a two-man game and there's a switch, Jimmy Butler is the type of player that has the ability to consistently punish that switch in a way that Andrew Wiggins could not. It's a massive upgrade there.

He's been a knockdown spot-up shooter for a few years now, like damn near 50%. It'll give them a much, much, much better chance to survive the non-Steff minutes. It'll give them a bona fide playoff stud to just hang in terms of the talent of those environments. And most importantly, it slots all the other role players into more achievable roles. As long as Steph and Jimmy are both healthy, you'll never have to watch a bench unit

without a star, trying and failing to score. As long as those two guys are healthy, you won't have to see that. I'm super excited to see this group in action. Also, the spot-up shooting numbers that's based on catch-and-shoot numbers. that's based on catch-and-shoot numbers. He's been shooting about 50% on catch-and-shoot jump shots for the last couple of years, which is crazy. And you still have depth.

This is the beauty of having 15 guys that have all played quality minutes for you this year. You kept Kaminga. You still have Buddy Heel, Trace Jackson-Davis, Kvon, Lune, Moses Moody, Gary Payton the second. I'm super excited to watch lineups with Jimmy, Dremont, and Gary Payton all on the floor together playing defense. Brandon Podemskymonds.

Brandon Post. By my count, you still have 11 guys who can play quality minutes in the NBA. And now you have them all in more achievable roles. Not to mention, you just have a stronger foundation this summer. If there's some other hole in the roster that appears over the course the next couple months and you want to try to round it out this summer,

now you have a stronger foundation with Steph Dramon and Jimmy as opposed to just Steph and Dremont. The Warriors are currently two and a half games out of the six seat. Do I think they're going to climb to the top of the conference? No. I mean, they have a chance to get it. out of the playing. But like, they're not going to be some dominant team in the Western Conference. But now when you face the Warriors in a playoff series, it's contending with

Steph, Dremont, and Jimmy Butler. You've changed the entire challenge of trying to overcome the talent that the Golden State Warriors have on the table. This is, again, when you're in a situation like the Warriors are in, where you're a little bit strapped for assets, where the types of salaries you have to match. Like before the deal, I think they had six guys that make between five and ten million. That makes it really hard to aggregate salaries without giving up a ton of players. They were in a tough spot. There was no perfect deal.

There was nothing out there that was going to magically turn them into some top-tier contender. But you went from a team that had no shot because they didn't have the shot creation talent necessary to actually contend to now you, there's a chance there. Now I can see Steph and Jimmy in a playoff series and the defense comes together. This is a top 10 defense. You can imagine a lineup with Steph next to Gary Payton with Jimmy on the floor, Jonathan Camiga, and Draymond, and you're like, there's actually a good amount of talent and athleticism, defensive talent, guys that can score the basketball on the floor.

That's a lineup that might cause some problems for teams. Whereas we've seen too often this year, like if you just guard the Warriors well, they probably aren't going to make any shots and you'll probably beat them. It just gives you an upside that wasn't there before. and I just really wanted to see Steph playing some more meaningful basketball games, and I'm really, really excited that we're going to get to see that. I think this was probably the perfect outcome for the Miami Heat. Andrew Wiggins is a really high-level role player.

In the same way that he's underqualified for what the Golden State Warriors needed from him, he's overqualified for what the Miami Heat need from it. And that's a good thing. I think he's a top-tier perimeter defender in this league. He's got the speed-to-guard guards and the size-to-guard wings. I'm super excited to see him in lineups next to Bam and Kelle Ware. Like, that could be frightening to deal with defensively. But most importantly, you turned a malcontent

who is actively trying to sabotage your season into a really high-level role player. That plays the same position, and you got a first-round pick out of it too. Hard not to view that as a massive win for the Miami Heat compared to the alternative. The alternative is your max contract player is just actively trying to mess up everything that you're trying to do.

Now you can move on. See what this group is capable of. I think there's an obvious offensive ceiling on a team that's led by Terry Rozier, Duncan Robinson, Tyler Harrow, Bam, Atabio. There's an obvious offensive limitation there. But now you have the actual type of top-end athletic personnel on the wing to anchor your front line and give yourself a defensive ceiling, that wasn't there before, or at least wasn't there because Jimmy Butler wasn't playing.

So, I mean, I think if you really compare it to some of the other deals that were getting floated around out there, I think this one actually made the most sense for them in terms of increasing their potential in the short and the long term. All right, guys, that's all I have for tonight. Again, as I said, I'm going to get much deeper into the trade deadline tomorrow and get into a bunch of other storylines. I, as always, I sincerely appreciate you guys for rocking with me and for supporting the show. I'll see you guys.

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Tired and sick. Listen to Hey Jonas on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Just listen. We don't care where you hear it. Another podcast from some SNL late-night comedy guy, not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smygel and friends. Me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman help make you funnier. This week, my guest, SNL's Mikey Day and head writer Streeter Seidel.

help an a cappella band with their between songs banter. Where does your group perform? We do some retirement homes. Those people are starving for banter. Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and friends on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Every family has its secrets.

But what happens when you discover that your dad has been living a double life? That is not the look of an innocent man. Is everyone lying to me about who they are? I felt such desperation. I felt it was what I had to do. Listen to Deep Cover the Family Man on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,

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