Caron Butler: Frontline Leadership Doesn't Settle for Jumpshots

Wizards fans gotta love Caron Butler. Down 5 points with 2 minutes left, all seemed lost.

Then Butler stepped forward. He could have stepped back and settled for the jumper, but as Butler himself said, “I didn’t want to look back at the season and be like I settled for the jump shot and probably bail out [LeBron].”

As ESPN.com reports, Butler stepped up into LeBron’s customer hero role by stepping into his head:

As the teams were setting up for the final four seconds, Butler came over to whisper in LeBron’s ear. In was half joke, half mind game — just like James did two years ago when he spooked Gilbert Arenas at the foul line and he missed two free throws in the deciding Game 6.

“I was messing with LeBron a little bit,” Butler said. “I said ‘Let’s make this series interesting. Let’s take it back to D.C.’”

This could be a turning point for the franchise, if they embrace Butler’s example of not settling for jumpers, but taking the harder path–right to the chest of the defender onthe way to the rim.

Brian Windhorst got it right, calling this

…a star performance from Butler, who had a career playoff-high 32 points to go with nine rebounds and five assists. Plus one pretty impressive finish, one that featured very little of the famous Wizards talking and some quite memorable doing.

“That was our season right there,” Butler said. “We’ve proven doubters wrong all season and this was just another opportunity.”

Let’s hope they seize Friday night’s opportunity to take the hard road, right through the hearts and heads of the Cleveland LeBrons!