Jimmy Butler Says He Loves Joel Embiid 'To Death,' Comments on Exit from 76ers

Jimmy Butler won't quite explicitly tell anyone why he left the Philadelphia 76ers. That said, he's left enough bread crumbs over the last year that it's explicitly obvious Joel Embiid wasn't part of the problem.

"That's my guy. Outside of basketball, I love that man to death. He knows that," Butler told Sam Amick of The Athletic. "I tell him every opportunity I get, and I appreciate him for making me a better player, a better leader, better at understanding so many different things. I talk to him all the time, and I tell him, 'I wish you were still in the playoffs, because you deserve a championship.' Because he works. He works at it, and that's just my guy. Yeah, I saw it, and I know that he still wanted me to be on his team. And I still wanted to be teammates with him. Let's not get that misunderstood. But here, with these guys, I'm not trading that for the world either."

Butler's tension with coach Brett Brown and Ben Simmons has been well-documented. The opinionated Butler rankled Brown and Simmons with his criticisms; Butler became disillusioned by Brown's lack of creativity on offense and leadership skills. 

"Hell yeah, it was difficult. It was so different, and on any given day, me as a person, as a player, I didn't know who the f--k was in charge," Butler said in March on JJ Redick's podcast. "I think that was my biggest thing. I didn't know what the f--k to expect whenever I would go into the gym, whenever I'd go into the plane, whenever I'd go into the game. I was like: 'Man.' I think I was as lost as the next motherf--ker."

The Sixers sent Butler to Miami as part of a sign-and-trade deal that brought Josh Richardson back to Philadelphia. The Sixers bowed out in an ugly first-round sweep to the Boston Celtics, leading to Brown's dismissal.

Butler, who has been fully embraced in Miami in every respect, has the Heat up 1-0 over the top-seeded Milwaukee Bucks in Round 2. It does not appear Butler thinks much about could-have-beens in Philly. 

"I'm here now, and I'm telling you. I don't even think about what could have happened with Brett Brown. What could have happened... I don't, because if I get too lost in that I'm not doing my due diligence for these guys. I'm so f--king locked in right now, and I will do anything that it takes to win man. I'm telling you. Like, I don't want to have to come out and score 40. I don't give a f--k. I'll shoot the ball twice as long as you guarantee me that we get a 'Dub.' I don't care (how he gets labeled as a player), I don't. I couldn't care less how anybody labels me. Just know that I do everything in my power to win. That's what brings me the most joy, is that no matter what you think, or no matter what you might say, you're never going to be able to say that I'm not a winner. I may not have won it, but you're not going to say that I was a loser, that I played a losing style of basketball. You'll never say that."

Embiid, for his part, does seem to have a bit of wistful nostalgia watching Butler from home.