The Ringer NBA Show
Jimmy Butler Suffers a Torn ACL. Plus, Real Ones All-Star Reserves | Real Ones
20 Jan 2026
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
It's popping.
Chapter 2: What happened to Jimmy Butler and what are the implications for the Warriors?
Real ones. Logan Murdoch here. Raja Bell and Howard Beck in a minute. Somber episode to start with the news of Jimmy Butler's tour in ACL. We talk about the ramifications for Steph, Warriors front office, and everything Golden State going forward. It's a really tough time. The fledgling days of a dynasty. All of those things. We talk about all of that.
what could have happened, what should have happened, what's happening now.
Chapter 3: How does Jimmy Butler's injury affect the Warriors' playoff chances?
And then me, Raja and Howard give our reserve picks for the all-star game. And yeah, it was a really good conversation. I really loved it. Love getting in the lab with these guys. And I think you guys will too. So Cliff, play the theme music. What's popping ruins. Logan Murdoch here. Roger Bell there. Howard Beck in the cut. Happy belated MLK day for those who celebrate.
Um, this is really somber, man. We had a whole podcast. I'm ready to go. Signed, sealed and delivered until late last night when it's seven 20 with seven 41 left in the third quarter. Um, of a one 35, one 12 warriors win over the Miami heat. Jimmy Butler takes it, tries to take an inbound pass and tears his right ACL.
And he's expected to miss the rest of the season and probably the start of next season too, as well. Like that, you know, we're at that stage right now where this is probably, you look at it about a year long injury. So this is going to be, take some time, a lot of ramifications that we're going to get to in this, in the first, um,
In the first segment here, a lot of ramifications for Jimmy, a lot of ramifications for the Warriors, a lot of ramifications for one Jonathan Kaminga, who continues to be in the Warriors' news cycle. Let's get into those ramifications, Howard.
Let's put this in perspective for everybody involved, not just the injury that happened last night, but what are the things that will come out of this in your eyes from your perspective?
Oh, man. This is difficult on so many levels for the Warriors. They were already kind of on the fringes of the playoff hunt, right? We're a good, solid team. We're a team that's going to finish in the mid-40s to high-40s and wins, right?
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Chapter 4: What are the potential trades for the Warriors following Butler's injury?
With Jimmy Butler.
Chapter 5: Who are the All-Star reserves and who got snubbed?
With all the weirdness around Kuminga. With this kind of wonky roster. We're hanging in. But this? This is a death blow to the season. There's no two ways about it. No Jimmy Butler means whatever illusion the Warriors had, whatever hopes they had of being on the fringe contender chase in the West is gone. And I don't know if they were there in the first place.
But even if you were close, if you thought you were close, maybe we're one really good Kuminga trade away from really inserting ourselves in that top tier in the West. Forget it. Not without Jimmy Butler. Any hope the Warriors had of being more than a first-round-and-out team is gone. So that's the first part. The second part is to step back and assess what you can do.
If Steph is five years younger, okay, well, this season we couldn't do it. We'll regroup in the summer. We'll figure it out. But the clock is ticking. Steph is still a top 10 player in the NBA as of this moment.
Chapter 6: What criteria do the hosts use to select All-Star reserves?
How much longer, how many more years, we don't know. So I think the first question for Mike Dunleavy Jr. and his staff is, Do we try to still make some moves? There's a Kaminga trade to be made that was going to be made anyway, I think. I guess maybe you could reassess that. Do we keep Kaminga now? I don't think so. I think you're still better off.
Yeah, I don't think Jimmy's absence opens the door. Jonathan Kaminga is not Jimmy Butler, and he's not going to fill. Nobody's going to fill all those things. But Kaminga is not the answer. So you still have to trade Kuminga anyway. That's an untenable situation.
I don't know if there are any other moves you can make, but how much are you willing to go all in on trying to salvage this season versus planning for next season? Not knowing whether you'll get the same Steph for sure next season or the same Draymond for that matter. So it just throws everything into this awful gray area. I will say the timing of this sucks on so many levels for them.
They had just won, counting the game that they won without Jimmy last night, they won four in a row, 12-4 since December 18th.
Chapter 7: How do the hosts feel about the current state of the Warriors?
They were actually in a pretty good groove, 25-19 for the season. That puts them on pace for 46-47 wins. They're eighth in the West, but only a game and a half out of sixth. Two games out of fifth, they were actually in an okay place. And with a potential Kuminga trade to come that maybe could bolster them.
And now instead you're talking about, can we just stay in the play-in race and just hang on? And how much do you invest in what's left of this season? It's fucking brutal.
How are you feeling, Roger? This is a sad state of affairs. Let's get your perspective first. What's going on?
I don't have much to add to what Howard said. Just coming from a player's perspective, that sucks for Jimmy, especially at a point in the career where, let's just be honest, rehabbing isn't as easy. You aren't as focused all the time. I mean, he might be, but generally you have other things going on in your world.
Jimmy seems to be one of those guys that enjoys a lot of things in his world outside of basketball that he's got interest in. And I've talked before about how you know, priorities and focus just starts to shift, right?
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Chapter 8: What are the challenges faced by the Warriors' front office?
As you become more worldly and you get older. And so it's a hard injury to see him suffer at this point. Everything that Howard said is spot on. The answer, I think, to whether you try to salvage this season and like, I don't know that it's salvageable, Howard. Like what, you know, you've just by no fault of their own necessarily, like you can never predict this injury.
But, you know, I was on here a week or so ago talking about them wasting Steph's whatever window is left. And this just falls right into that bucket, right? Like it was looking promising.
Who knows what you could have done in the Kaminga by way of picking up a piece that just might not be a huge pillar of the community, if you will, but like maybe a piece that just kind of unlocked something with them, giving them more of a chance than I thought that they had in the West. But that's out the window now. And so it just sucks all the way around.
It's a sad morning for Golden State fans. Jimmy Butler fans, Jimmy Butler's family, the whole nine.
Yeah. I mean, by the way, this is the knee that he's had trouble with his knee throughout his entire career. I think in 2018, he had a torn meniscus in this knee. 2024, he had a MCL sprain in this knee. It,
It's one of those things where, you know, the elephant was always in the room with Golden State with this, you know, this from the beginning of this Jimmy trade and, you know, the time that preceded it where, you know, the Warriors had to do something.
But they the Jimmy Butler trade seemed, you know, in essence, like a bandaid to the problems that they had, because right now, like they don't really have much of a deep team. Right. I mean, you talk about how. You know, they've gone on this run. A lot of that has to do with the great play of three players, Jimmy Butler, Draymond Green and Steph Curry.
And that's kind of been the pillars of this offense and defense. You talk about the on off splits when Jimmy, Steph and Draymond are on the floor versus when they're off. It's very glaring. Right. They don't really have much of a bench. They don't really have much of a front court. It's it's it's really sad. Right. I wasn't at the arena last night, but I can imagine just how quiet.
And this it was one of those wins that was like no one is thinking about what happened on the floor afterwards. They're thinking about one guy and there's going to be ramifications to this. And the other thing is this like. I was thinking about before the pod, like, what do they do with Jimmy Butler?
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