The Philadelphia 76ers had themselves a tough 2019-20 season where they did not come anywhere close to the expectations that they laid out for themselves at the beginning of the season.
One of the reasons why they were not able to have the success they expected was that they were missing a closer and a go-to guy. While Tobias Harris did his best to fill that role, he certainly is not Jimmy Butler who the Sixers did have, but he left the team to join the Miami Heat in the offseason.
There has been a lot of drama and a lot of “he said-she said” going on in terms of why Butler left, but it is clear that Philadelphia missed his presence. The Sixers were swept in Round 1 of the playoffs while Butler has led the Heat to the NBA Finals.
Just to throw more salt in the wound, Butler has now scored more points in these playoffs by himself than the Sixers had in their series with the Boston Celtics. Philadelphia scored 402 points in Round 1 as a team while Butler now has 420 points himself for the Heat.
To be fair, the Sixers were missing star Ben Simmons as HoopsHype’s Bryan Kalbrosky has pointed out:
It is worth noting that Philly was without star Ben Simmons due to an injured knee cap. Not only was Simmons their leading distributor (8.0 assists per game) during the regular season but he was also their third-leading scorer (16.4 points per game) as well.
Simmons had his hand on 35.8 percent of buckets that Philadelphia scored during the regular season, per RealGM, either scoring himself or creating the opportunity through an assist. To further illustrate how important Simmons is to their team, that rate trailed just eleven players in the NBA.
Wow https://t.co/CFSiLwxFly pic.twitter.com/rnevh6qpWW
— Ky Carlin (@Ky_Carlin) October 7, 2020
While Kalbrosky brings up a good point about Simmons, it goes to show that the Sixers are in need of people who can step up and make big shots. Philadelphia was miserable shooting the ball in the playoffs and while Joel Embiid averaged 30 points per game, their lack of another go-to scorer and a shooter was clearly apparent.
People can make the case that Butler has played 19 games compared to Philadelphia’s four, it is still wild that he has more points individually than the team had as a whole. Embiid has been following Butler closely in these playoffs as he has been tweeting things like “inspiring” as well as wondering “what if” throughout Butler’s playoff run. [lawrence-related id=38186,38183,38180]