Jimmy Butler got on a boat, and things generally got worse for him from there. It wasn’t a lot of water or a lot of boat, but it still counts as bad.
Sam Alipour of ESPN the Magazine took Jimmy Butler into the Minnesota woods with the intention of talking about basketball. The Minnesota Timberwolves have been a team been one year away from breaking out for a couple years now, and with the addition of Butler it might finally be the time to talk about the team making that jump.
But who cares about all that. Jimmy Butler fell in some water, and it was funny.
Is he playing it up for the cameras? Sure, maybe a little. It’s hard to believe he usually screams like that. I, for instance, only do it about 40 percent of the time. Plus, he’s not really in to water. Here’s a bit of dialogue reported from the piece:
"ESPN: Let’s start by putting on our life preservers.Jimmy Butler: Oh, yeah, I need both of them. I can’t swim.E: Seriously? So if I tore the vest off you and tossed you in —JB: I’d sue you.E: You really want my life preserver too?JB: Yeah, I wasn’t playin’ around. I need both."
Look. Very few NBA games are played in over three inches of water. When it does happen, it’s usually one of those Gatorade Niagara Falls 24-Hour Underwater Fundraiser events that happen at All-Star break. Jimmy hasn’t participated in that since 2015.
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Regardless of circumstance or concern for personal safety, it was fun to watch. The framing of the camera was basically perfect, and I’d be pretty surprised if the threatened lawsuit went very far. In celebration of whatever this was, let’s all find our favorite shallow body of water and lean sideways into it. I’ll be going with a small array of sinks in my parents’ house.