Goals should change after Butler trade
CAMDEN, N.J. >> The goal was high, but different. It was reasonable, yet oddly limited. It was said clearly, without hesitation, then repeated after Brett Brown was given a chance to elaborate. And it stuck.
The Sixers this season, Brown said, wanted to play in the NBA Finals. Not win a championship, necessarily. Just be good enough to play for one. And it was at that point that the organization faced two choices. One would be to commission 20,000 “We’re No. 2” foam fingers and set them aside for a June giveaway night. The other would to add a player that could give Brown a reasonable chance to compete against whichever team might budge through the Western Conference tournament to stand in the Sixers’ way of fulfillment.
So it was this week that El-
ton Brand gave Brown Jimmy Butler. A four-time All-Star with the ability to finish inside and out, to defend, and to provide a championship-level snarl in and out of the locker room, Butler would, at the minimum, make the Sixers technically qualified to talk about winning a title. In that league, it is mandatory to have three intheir-prime All-Stars. It would help to have four. Golden State has employed five. But for the purposes of competing for a championship in the early 21st Century NBA, three developing Hall of Fame candidates are the equivalent of the government-issued ID for title contention.
And there they are: Joel Embiid, who is having an MVP season; Ben Simmons, whose plentiful unique point-guard skills make him a special talent; and Butler, a doeverything wing with an image problem. Already, both the Chicago Bulls and Minnesota Timberwolves had grown tired enough of his demands of teammates and coaches to let him go. But, well, he’s a Sixer. Also, he says he is this: “An incredible human being and teammate.”
Incredible human being and teammate. Good for him.
As for the Sixers, if Butler can be the necessary piece to join Embiid and J.J. Redick in surrounding Simmons with scorers, then it’s time to declare that the NBA Finals should be no more than a fallback goal.
So go for it.
Go for it all.
Go for it while Embiid is having a season that he cannot be expected to often duplicate. Go for it while he is healthy. Go for it while Simmons is contracted for at least another year, before he might build a distaste for being the No. 3 personality on a team in a sports culture where the leading personalities are made the wealthiest. Go for it before Redick’s contract expires.
It’s time. Right? Right? Right?
“No, no, no,” Elton Brand said.
What? After all those years of tanking, it’s still too early to talk championship? After Josh Harris, who once approved a 10-win season, had just announced that he would do anything to bring a championship to Philadelphia? After Butler was just caught saying how much he liked the sound of the Sixers’ “Big Three?”
“I’m taking my time,” Brand continued. “This is a
step toward getting to the finals, in my opinion. Early on, the championship talk was a little premature for me. But this is a step in that direction. There is still work to do. Maybe not trades or anything like that, but we have an open roster spot and we are definitely going to be evaluating our team.”
The message was clear: Brand does not yet believe he has a championship team. But the Sixers exchanged Dario Saric, Robert Covington and Jerryd Bayless for Butler and Justin Patton, meaning that there is one roster spot open. Carmelo Anthony is looking for yet another landing spot after quickly proving a distraction in Houston. The Sixers have liked to talk about freeing Kyle Korver from that decaying Cleveland mess. Brand says he has fielded many feelers from associates of NBA veterans hoping to join the Sixers.
There is time to improve. The Sixers didn’t become a team capable of uncorking a 16-game winning streak last season until they added Ersan Ilyasova and Marco Belinelli around the trade deadline. There is more to come. But there is no more reason to limit expectations. The Warriors are breathtaking. But maybe they are tripped in the Western Conference playoffs. The Raptors and Celtics, and maybe the Bucks and Pacers, will be trouble. But with Butler, and with Embiid producing at an historic pace, the Sixers are capable of winning any Eastern Conference playoff series.
So they should talk championship, think it, prepare for it.
“It’s above any and everything,” Butler said. “That’s the reason why everybody plays this game, to win a championship. MVPs are great. Scoring titles are great. Defensive Players of the Year are great. But with that trophy and knowing at that point in time that you are the best team in the world, that’s very special. All I want to do is win. I hope to have that opportunity here. That’s the goal. And that will always be the goal.”
In that, Butler already has added value. He has given the Sixers the allclear to think about a parade. He has said it. He will say it again. And he has the skills, and the teammates, to back up his talk.
The Sixers may never have a better chance to win a championship. For that, they should no longer have approval to consider anything less.