Against Toronto I think that tactic is more pronounced, because it decreases Leonard's brilliance on the defensive end since he's not harassing the primary initiator as much. A couple years ago coaches were just telling most of their players to stand in the corner if they were being guarded by him.
He blew up at Brett about something, and has shown derision on the bench about blown defensive assignments in losses. But most importantly, he hasn't complained about the fans, nor about his teammates in public.
You can just tell he is loving playing in this city with Embiid and Simmons. With the playoffs being here everything has gone to a whole new level and Jimmy has just become a completely different player for this team. The city and team is loving him right back as well and while at one point I thought he wouldn't be back, right now I'd be shocked if he isn't.
Agreed. It'd have to take a real boneheaded move by Sixers mgmt to screw up contract negotiations. And that's accepting a world where Jimmy takes a smidge less than the max to improve the bench depth, because #reasons.
Not sure if you heard but he held an easter egg hunt about a week ago for Sixers employees. Inside the eggs were all kind of prizes like 250 cash, tickets for winning a Tv, etc. He also had the event catered with ice cream and cookies. I think it's safe to say it has finally all come together. Butler realizes it would be good for his career to make this work, and he's also realizing that Embiid and Simmons actually work hard and care about winning unlike the young schmucks he used to play with. It's just been beautiful to watch in these playoffs, Butler is just an absolute alpha dog right now.
