As Jimmy Butler goes, so do the Chicago Bulls, and Rajon Rondo called it back in July. While making his famous, or now perhaps infamous, “three alphas” comment Rondo followed up by saying “it’s Jimmy’s team.”
Rondo has accomplished a lot, and Dwyane Wade has accomplished more than the rest of the Bulls roster combined, but Butler is the true alpha dog of this team. Jimmy Butler scored 28 points in 39 minutes today to lead Chicago over the very lowly New Orleans Pelicans, as the team became revitalized.
“Hell, My stomach was … oh,” Butler said after returning from a two game absence to put in a game MVP performance. The 27-year-old former Marquette man was afflicted by a stomach illness.
“That’s what it’s been like, man. Diarrhea, man.”
“My body is all type of messed up. … It wasn’t a pretty sight.”
Another less than pretty sight was the Bulls offense without their bonafide league MVP candidate. The Bulls lost both games without Butler, as well as the contest preceding his absence.
“Without Jimmy Butler (tonight) there may not be enough offensively for them to move the ball around and be effective,” said TNT NBA Analyst Brent Barry following the Bulls 104-89 blowout loss to good old friends Derrick Rose, Joakim Noah and the rest of the New York Knicks.
“Obviously we’re so much better with him on the floor,” Hoiberg said Saturday.
“You talk about just a select few in this league that have that type of impact on their overall team. Jimmy, he does everything. The thing that’s most overlooked with Jimmy, I think we’ve talked about this a lot, is a lot of those guys that are putting up these types of numbers are not guarding the other team’s best player.
“Jimmy goes out every night and takes pride in that role. That’s what makes him one of the top players in this league.”
Butler and the Golden State Warriors’ Stephen Curry today were named NBA Eastern and Western Conference Players of the Week, respectively, for games played Monday, Jan. 2 through Sunday, Jan. 8.
Just last Jimmy Butler scored a season-high 52 points and added 12 rebounds and six assists in a 118-111 win over the Hornets. he then had 20 points, eight assists and six rebounds in a 106-94 victory against the Cavaliers. Butler then concluded the week with 42 points, 10 rebounds, five assists and three steals in a 123-118 overtime win over the Raptors.
Before he got sick, Butler led the Bulls to a 3-0 week, averaging a league-leading 38.0 points to go with 9.3 rebounds and 6.3 assists.
His 50-point game of his career and the first by a Bull at the United Center since Michael Jordan in April 1997.
For Jimmy Butler, his elite week of tremendous excellence came with Rondo not just benched, but frozen out. The calls to “Free Rondo” have been answered and it’s mandatory that the Bulls figure out what to do with him (a topic which we covered in detail last week).
“He’s temperamental,” said Charles Barkley of Rondo.
“At this stage of his career, he’s not going to change and the Bulls should have known that going into the season. It’s not going to work.”
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net, partnered with FOX Sports Engage Network. and News Now. Banks, a former writer for the Washington Times, Bold and the Chicago Tribune’s RedEye publication, appears regularly as a guest on CGTN America, WGN CLTV News and KOZN 1620 The Zone.
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