Miami Heat: Can Jimmy Butler rewrite an unlucky playoff past?

Perhaps it’s a Miami Heat team he so desperately wanted to go to that can help Jimmy Butler overcome a playoff resume littered with bad place and timing.

Jimmy Butler is a star in the NBA, an All-Star in all but one of the last six seasons and a large reason the Miami Heat sit fourth in the east at 42-24.

A superstar? Eh, that’s a bit much. Such is reserved for the players capable of chasing after exclusive hardware. Regular season and Finals MVPs. First-Team All-NBA selections. Butler has never made more than the Third Team, only twice.

The clear drop off amid the individual hierarchy helps to explain Butler’s underwhelming playoff resume, one that has absent even a single trip to the conference finals.

That track record makes you question the obsession several teams, from Minnesota to Philly to now Miami, have had with Butler. His past indicates he might not be the player each of those teams needed him to be, your No. 1 guy on a championship team. Or is it possible that his postseasons of years past couldn’t possibly give us a proper conclusion given all the instances fate seemed to work against him?

Butler experienced playoff basketball in his first three years in the league, but it wasn’t until the 2014-15 season where he endured it under the harsh light of stardom. An All-Star star for the first time and the league’s Mst Improved Player, he guided his Chicago Bulls past Milwaukee in a six-game first-round series.

Despite earning the No. 3 seed with 50 wins, Chicago’s success had in a way set them up for failure, pitting them against LeBron James and the Cavaliers in the conference semis. This, compared to the matchup on the other side of the bracket that gave the fifth-seeded Washington Wizards a matchup with a 60-win but hardly respected and a definite outlier Atlanta Hawks team.

Nevertheless, the Bulls earned a 2-1 series lead with the chance to tighten their grip in front of their home fans for Game 4. The odds were in their favor. Less so, however, when All-Star Pau Gasol, who averaged 18.5 points, 11.8 rebounds and 1.9 blocks per game during the regular season, was relegated to the bench with a hamstring injury.

A loss at the mercy of LeBron’s heroics swung the series back in Cleveland’s favor, an edge that would not be relinquished as Gasol missed Game 5 and struggled in the elimination Game 6.

The Bulls missed the playoffs in 2016 but barely snuck in the following year on the shoulders of Butler’s peak season and an infamously clunky backcourt featuring Rajon Rondo and Dwyane Wade.

That mismatched trio proved to have some formula against the top-seeded Boston Celtics in the first round, winning both games at TD Garden to surprisingly head home up 2-0.

Rondo had proven the unexpected x-factor, putting in 11.5 points, 10.0 assists, 8.5 rebounds and 3.5 steals across the two opening games. The value of his presence is what turned the series around in his absence, where a fractured thumb opened a door the Celtics used to win four straight.

Boston would go on to take Washington out in the second round. A tough opponent that required seven games but one certainly more attractive than standing in Cleveland’s path towards the Finals.

Upon being dealt to the Timberwolves that summer, Butler had his new team among the best in the west, third in the conference as late as Feb. 24. It was on that night when the good vibes amid a season vastly exceeding expectations took a dip as Butler was ruled out indefinitely with a meniscus injury.

When he returned, home-court advantage was gone, replaced with a win-and-your-in contest in the last game of the season to earn a playoff spot. And a favorable first-round matchup turned into one against the Houston Rockets that required all of five games for the league’s top team to take care of.

The story of what happened the following year has become painfully etched in NBA history for Butler and his latest team, the Philadelphia 76ers.

A game-tying layup by Butler in the closing seconds bred hope for Philly’s overtime fate after closing a four-point gap in the final minute of Game 7 against the Toronto Raptors in the second round.

Kawhi Leonard’s ensuing shot looked to swing more momentum in favor of the Sixers after it bounced high off the rim. But then that first bounce begot another and two more immediately following. When gravity finally won, both sides were dumbfounded, but it was Philly bearing the weight of defeat, any chance at a dramatic road victory violently dissolved.

The natural unpredictability of basketball bites nearly every player at one point or another. The impact of injuries has managed to reach the rarified air of even LeBron, Kevin Durant and Stephen Curry. Sometimes them directly, but influencing their title chances one way or another.

Every year, though, it seems like Butler’s fortune is tied more to that which he can’t control, a cruel outcome that makes you consider the alternative. A healed ailment in one instance or a one percent difference in shooting arc on another and perhaps the gap that keeps Butler from superstardom is much smaller.

The Heat rank among the 10-best teams — wins wise — in the league but are hardly viewed as a legitimate title threat, taking and embracing those slighted cues from its leader.

To crash the list of contenders, Miami’s two All-Stars will have to play like it. Shooters Duncan Robinson and Tyler Herro will have to maintain their lethal strokes. The integration of Andre Iguodala will have to go a lot smoother than it did in the 14 games he managed before the shutdown.

Or maybe, all that’s needed is a little luck, the type that’s alluded Butler in a yearly occurrence, capping his ceiling at a level he’s hoping the Heat can finally help him bust through.