The catastrophic injury epidemic in the NBA has claimed its latest victim. Jimmy Butler, whose Golden State Warriors have been among the hottest teams in the league, went down Monday night with a torn ACL.
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Butler’s right leg landed awkwardly in the paint in the third quarter. He went down in obvious pain before needing to be helped off the court. The Warriors ended up beating Butler’s former team, the Miami Heat, 135-112, but that was a small consolation… They have lost one of their most important players right when momentum was on their side.
The Warriors have won four straight and 12 of their last 16 games to get to 25-19 at the moment. That’s currently good for eighth in the West, though they’re less than three games out of fourth. NBA insider Shams Charania got on Sportscenter and he laid out how long Butler is expected to be out and how that will impact the Warriors.
“His season is over. He faces a recovery timetable of really, the next calendar year,” Shams said. “And this shatters the hopes that the Warriors had this season of contending for a championship around Stephen Curry.”
Shams pointed out that since Butler arrived last year, the Warriors have a .676 winning percentage. He then elaborated on the kind of options they have moving forward.
“This puts a dent in their chances to compete for a championship,” reiterated Charania. “In some shape or form, the Warriors are back on the roller coaster that is their saga with Jonathan Kuminga.”
Kuminga hasn’t played since mid-December, and he requested a trade just last week, on the first day he was eligible to be dealt. Charania said that his sources have told him that the young forward’s relationship with head coach Steve Kerr is “fractured beyond repair.”
This definitely makes it unlikely that he’ll find his way back into the rotation, even though Butler and Draymond Green, among others, have sung his praises. That leaves a trade as the only way for the Warriors to fill Butler’s spot. “Two teams that have interest in Jonathan Kuminga,” Shams continued.
“The Dallas Mavericks and Sacramento Kings. So does a player, say, DeMar DeRozan, does he fit the bill of what the Warriors could need without Jimmy Butler? But one way or another, the Warriors are about to find out where they stand with Jonathan Kuminga this season,” he added.
The Kings had interest in Kuminga over the summer, but the two teams couldn’t come to an agreement. Maybe now, with Butler out and the Warriors more desperate to make a move, something could get done.
Butler has one more year and over $56 million left on his contract. And at 36 years old, it looks like the best-case scenario is that he’s able to get back late next season. This is just a really brutal injury for him and the Warriors, and a cruel twist of fate that it happened against the team that he forced his way out of last year.
