If Jimmy Butler won’t rest himself, the Bulls should step in and make call

Despite a 20-point performance in a loss against the Phoenix Suns on Friday night, it’s clear that Jimmy Butler still isn’t his usual self. With three games left before the break, maybe sitting Butler is the best option.

With a shade under five minutes left in Friday night’s game in Phoenix, Eric Bledsoe drove down the lane and was fouled (?) by Taj Gibson, resulting in Bledsoe falling into Butler’s right knee and sending the All-Star starter to the floor.

As noted by Stephen Noh of The Athletic Chicago who grabbed the footage and for anyone that was watching at home, it was clear that Butler wasn’t right after the collision.

At first, it didn’t look like much, but it didn’t take long to see that Butler was feeling some kind of pain in his right leg.

Here’s the entire sequence, including the collision and Butler’s reaction:

Not only was the collision in a 13-point game with the Suns in control for virtually the entire evening, it was a bump that involved the only hope of Jerry Reinsdorf and the Bulls front office bringing in that much-wanted playoff revenue to the organization.

Butler has led the Bulls back from games that should’ve been over and stolen them in the end, but when you’re clearly shaken up and already fighting through a nagging injury on the same leg, what’s the point?

(A couple sidebars: The right foot is also the foot where Butler has been having the pain in his heel since the win over the Oklahoma City Thunder on Feb. 1 and missed the three games before Friday. Butler was also shown back in December rubbing the heel on his left foot on a lacrosse ball back in December during a game.)

There’s a few takeaways from this whole thing:

• The Bulls were never going to win this game, so keeping Butler in there for 30 minutes off a heel injury probably wasn’t the best idea

• Butler keeping himself in there instead of letting Fred Hoiberg sub in Denzel Valentine wasn’t the best idea either

• The All-Star break is coming up, so time for rest is coming, but getting to that rest period is the key part

The Bulls play Sunday (Minnesota), then come home for two games on Tuesday (Toronto), Thursday (Boston) next week. As of now, the Bulls reside as the No. 7 seed in the Eastern Conference standings; 1.5 games ahead of the Charlotte Hornets (who the Bulls *should* have lost to twice already this season, but you know, Jimmy Butler).

You can consider these final three games of the first half as huge games for the Bulls, being that one of them is a meeting with Tom Thibodeau and the other two are against two of the top four teams in the Eastern Conference. For the Bulls to have any chance at getting two or even three victories this week, they’ll need Jimmy Butler on the floor.

Here’s the issue with that: Butler didn’t look like himself on Friday. To be fair, that’s expected for a guy that missed three games, and he still had 20 points, six assists and made eight of his nine free throw attempts.

That’s still a solid night, but it really didn’t feel like a Butler-kind of night, at least not with the way Butler had been playing this season before the heel injury last week. If you rest him now, he’d get almost two weeks off with the NBA’s All-Star Weekend in between. Butler is slated to be a starter for the East, but he also didn’t play in last year’s game because of the left knee injury he suffered in Denver before the break last season.

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Butler didn’t look right, which could be simply shaking off the rust, but two weeks off to rest sure did a lot for LeBron James a couple seasons ago when he tried to lead the Cleveland Cavaliers to a title without Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love on the floor. Butler obviously isn’t James, but he’s virtually an iron man for the Bulls in terms of his minute count anyway. The Bulls want to make the playoffs and whether that’s the best plan for the future or not, that’s the goal.

One positive (that can be a negative at times) for Butler is that he wants to be on the floor no matter what, and for the Bulls to maintain their positioning in the postseason hunt to make the bosses happy, he has to be for the Bulls to have any shot at a playoff berth. It’s really that simple.

However, if Butler misses a month of the season again because of a knee injury or the heel issues continue to nag a la Joakim Noah before he changed shoe brands, the Bulls are done for anyway, so why not try to keep your best player fresh for the backstretch of the season? Butler probably won’t be the only one resting this week in terms of guys participating in All-Star Weekend this coming week.

Plus, it’s an interesting note when Butler is saying this like this after Friday’s blowout loss:

That’s … not a confident answer for someone like Butler, who always tries to give it a go through injuries.

Next: Bulls at Suns: 3 takeaways from the Bulls getting a case of Sun(s)burn

It may not be the most popular decision to rest Butler before a back-to-back set starting on Feb. 24 with the Suns and those Cavaliers, but it’s better than losing a legitimate MVP candidate for a span of the season that could cost you the whole season anyway.