Jimmy Butler is to Boston Celtics what LeBron James was to Raptors: Analyst

The Ringer's Danny Chau believes that Jimmy Butler is to the Boston Celtics in the 2020s what LeBron James was to the Toronto Raptors during the latter half of the 2010s.

"For what felt like a decade (yet somehow much shorter), the Toronto Raptors were terrorized by LeBron James in the postseason despite incrementally improving their regular-season lot, year after year," Chau prefaced before saying, "Trades for Kawhi Leonard and Marc Gasol created a new energy in the city, but for most, you didn’t believe they could win a title until they did in 2019. If the Celtics have their own LeBronto to deal with, it’s the haunting, jeering smirk of Jimmy Butler, whose (under)dogged presence affirms the idea of these Celtics as fragile front-runners."

Of course, that comparison is stopped dead in its tracks when you realize that the Raptors never did overcome James' Cleveland Cavaliers in the playoffs, whereas Butler's Miami Heat were sent home during the 2022 postseason by the Cs in the Eastern Conference Finals.

But what sort of objective coverage were you expecting in an article titled "Oh God. Is This the Boston Celtics’ Year?"

Current Boston Celtics don't have a 'LeBronto' holding them back

Chau evoking the Raptors works against his point. Toronto broke through during a season in which LeBron was in the west and essentially a whole new lineup was acquired by Raptors president Masai Ujiri and deployed by first-year head coach Nick Nurse.

This current Celtics team, featuring Kristaps Porzingis and Jrue Holiday and coached by Joe Mazzulla, is not the team that lost in the NBA's Orlando postseason bubble to Butler and Co. in 2020. Nor were they the team that actually beat the Heat in 2022.

There's no "LeBronto" holding the current team back, because nothing has proved capable of holding this team back.