"@KellyOubrejr We Throwing Hands" - Jimmy Butler Chirped Kelly Oubre Jr In The Heat's IG Comments After Being Ruled Out With An MCL Sprain

Greenie4/18/2024 11:20 PM

Tim Nwachukwu. Getty Images.

Despite our day starting with Jimmy Butler's agent calling out Shams and basically doubling down on his previous claim that he's just an ambulance chaser as a reporter

Unfortunately, Shams' early reporting was pretty spot on given what the MRI results ended up showing when it came to Butler's MCL injury

Given how he was walking after the game, I can't say a result like this is all that surprising. Playing 3 quarters with an MCL sprain is pretty crazy, and as I blogged this morning, it absolutely sucks that we're seeing so many serious injuries to key players before the actual playoffs even start. I don't care who you root for, nobody wants to see injuries this time of year. The playoffs are at their best when everyone is on the floor, so it sucks that's not going to be the case this year.

It's also not all that surprising that Jimmy Butler is ready to throw hands with Kelly Oubre

Now Butler is a master troll, so maybe that's all this is. I don't think you can rule that out, but I also won't rule out that after learning of how serious his injury is and what it means for his availability moving forward, Butler is pissed. The next logical step is going onto the team's IG on their post about you and tagging that you want to fight the guy who was involved with your injury.

Are we calling this a dirty play by Oubre? I'm not really sure what Butler would prefer Oubre do in that situation since he was airborne after the pump fake. It was Butler trying to create the contact on that shot which put him in that position in the first place, and I'm not even sure Oubre had any idea where or how he was landing. It felt like that play was more along the lines of being some shit luck compared to an intentionally dirty play, but am I crazy thinking that? Once you get someone up in the air and you lean in for contact, all you can do is hope that everyone walks away healthy. It's not all that different from when a guy unintentionally lands on someone's foot. That's just bad luck the majority of the time.

So while I can understand the appeal of wanting this to be serious and an actual beef, I can't help but think this was Jimmy just trolling a bit after finding out the news. He knows it'll go viral and blogs like this will be written, NBA Twitter will love it and that'll be that. It's a much less juicy storyline, but also much more believable.

If it's not that and Butler actually does want to fight Oubre over this, I feel like that doesn't make much sense. He could have just gone up strong instead of pump faking, and after the fake he could have tried something other than leaning in to draw the foul. Being mad at the other guy in a situation like that feels misplaced, so that's why I'm sticking with it all just being his way to troll.

But hey, if they end up needing a location to throw hands, I think we all know a place