Jimmy Butler. 4x NBA All-Star. 2x All-NBA Third Teamer. 4x NBA All-Defensive Second Team. 2015’s Most Improved Player. 2016 Olympic Gold Medalist with USA Basketball in Rio. We all know that Jimmy is a defensive stopper, a leader, and a guy who you can give the ball to with the game on the line, but Butler just gets buckets. He finished the year 15th in scoring, with 22.2 points per game, just below NBA Sixth Man of the Year Lou Williams, and ahead of fellow All-Stars Kemba Walker, Paul George, Blake Griffin, and teammate Karl-Anthony Towns. He finished tied for second in steals per game (behind Victor Oladipo, and tied with Eric Bledsoe and Paul George), had a top 20 Player Efficiency Rating (PER), Offensive Rating (better than Nikola Jokic, James Harden, and Kyle Lowry) and finished just behind Ben Simmons and Stephen Curry to round of the top 20 in Win Shares. What I’m trying to say is that Jimmy Butler is good at basketball.
His foundation is his phenomenal footwork. He’s got the poise and patience to pivot and pump, and twist, and then rip through and power to the paint. He can use his force or finish with finesse; he’ll go any way he needs in order to get to the basket, whether that’s under the defender, over, around, or even through them. He’s got the ability to hit from distance, his post game is pretty with the pristine pivoting he does, but he can also go full bully ball. Speaking of, he’s an absolute bull when he wants to get to the rim. He can score any kind of way, so as a defense, all you have to do is make him take the toughest shot possible…the only problem is, yeah, he can make those with worryingly regularity as well. He is Jimmy G Buckets after all, the G stands for gets.
This is more like the part 1 of my Jimmy Butler scoring series, so be sure to check the other one out too!