Should the Philadelphia 76ers worry about Jimmy Butler’s future?

The Philadelphia 76ers trading for Jimmy Butler clearly made them a better team, but questions over whether he’s a lock to re-sign with the team has infected his mostly positive inclusion with legitimate fear of things going horribly wrong.

Watching Jimmy Butler hit multiple game-winning shots during his short time with the Philadelphia 76ers has been incredible. Outside of Allen Iverson in his prime, Lou Williams was the only player capable of making a game-winning shot without having their coach draw up an elaborate play with the entire opposing team dedicated to stopping him during my lifetime watching the Sixers play. And Williams wasn’t nearly as good as Butler, when he was the Sixers’ sixth man during the decade of mediocrity and first round playoff exits.

Bulter’s contribution to the offensive end alone was enough to make the Sixers trading for him worthwhile, but Butler also bring the one-on-one defensive shutdown potential Andre Iguodala once brought during the Sixers’ most unremarkable era.

Since joining the Sixers, Butler is averaging 19 points, 3.4 assists, 4.8 rebounds, and 1.9 steals per game while making 38.6 percent of his shots from behind the three-point line. The Sixers have won 19 of the 28 games Butler played in, yet there’s a report from Jackie MacMullan that Butler is “on thin ice” with the organization.

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I imagine a man who has already asked his now fiancée to marry him, but is having doubts about whether the marriage will work, being in a similar situation as the Sixers with Butler.

After buying the ring, telling all of his family and friends about the engagement, and putting a down payment on a nice house that he expects to spend the next several years with the love of his life, it would be a disaster if the marriage never happened. The thought of having to start over after financially and emotionally committing to this one person, is something so painful, that it’s best to block out all those negative thoughts.

That’s what I’ve been doing every time I see a report about Butler not being happy with his role on the team, yelling at his coach, or missing another game to an injury that doesn’t appear to be major but is somehow unrelated to the injury that caused him to miss the previous game.

I’m not writing this to say my opinion has changed and I’m now facing the possibility that the Sixers traded Robert Covington and Dario Saric for a player that could be playing for a different team next season, because I’m still betting on the Sixers’ big three to working.

There’s still time to improve the team due to the trade deadline being over a week away, the Sixers can still offer Butler the more money than any other team in the NBA, and a possible trip to the Eastern Conference Finals could make any discussion about Butler leaving the Sixers look ridiculous several months from now.

While there are red flags that occasionally suggest issues with Butler’s fit and future with the Sixers, nothing that has been reported so far has been bad enough to sour my—and hopefully most fans—enthusiasm for a team built around Joel Embiid, Ben Simmons, and Jimmy Butler.