While Butler is known for his ability to steal the ball, he is less known for his ability to block the ball in comparison to taller forwards like Lebron or Brandon Ingram, which is what makes this statistic so interesting. Butler was only beat by Jayson Tatum who had an average block percentage of 2.42%. With regards to block percentage, Butler posted a 6 season high and had the second highest average last season with 1.67%, beating out Kawhi and Paul George who had averages of 1.61% and 1.26%, respectively. Butler is right on par with other elite perimeter defenders in this aspect. Over the last 6 seasons, Butler has had an average steal percentage of 2.55%, only trailing Paul George and Kawhi Leonard who had average steal percentages of 2.59% and 2.97%, respectively. During the 2019-20 season, Butler had the second highest median steal percentage with 2.75% and was only beat by the “Klaw” who had a median steal percentage of 2.9%. Now, I want to shift things and look at Butler’s defense. While offensive rebounds are often neglected in the modern NBA due to the increased pace of the game and emphasis on transition defense, Butler has embraced the old school approach of hustling for offensive boards to give his teammates more second chance scoring opportunities. Since his 1st All Star season (2014-15 season), Butler has averaged the highest offensive rebound percentage with 4.91% and Kawhi coming in second at 4.01%. It’s also important to note that this isn’t a new phenomenon. Moreover, he’s beating out taller forwards like Lebron James and Kawhi Leonard in terms of this metric as well. He posted the highest average offensive rebound percentage with 6.34%, almost double the percentage of the next leading player (Gordon Hayward with 3.28%). Regardless, his ability to get calls should make opposing teams weary and play him more carefully.įinally, Butler completely dominated the offensive glass last season. Butler may be getting to the line more because of his aggressive style of play which involves a lot of drives to the basket and post ups. Moreover, he also made significant improvements compared to the previous season with the Philadelphia 76ers where he averaged a 6 season low in free throw attempts which was probably a side effect of playing with Ben Simmons and Joel Embiid. Kawhi came in second with 7 free throw attempts per game. Last season, he averaged the highest number of free throw attempts with 8.5 per game. Butler is evolving from being a pure scorer to becoming more of a point forward, facilitating for the younger talent on his team like Bam Adebayo and Duncan Robinson.Īnother way Butler impacts the game is by getting to the line. While Butler’s number of 2 and 3 PT shot attempts were both at a 6 season low last season, Butler’s assist percentage was at a 6 season high. Only Kawhi and Demar Derozan came close with 26.5% and 24.0%, respectively. That meant he was directly assisting on almost 30% of his teammate’s field goals. Outside of Lebron James who is an exceptional passer and more of a point guard (and was therefore excluded from the boxplot above), Butler had the highest median assist percentage during the 2019-20 NBA season with 28.4%. One key aspect of Butler’s game that has improved significantly this season is his playmaking ability. To analyze the development of Butler’s own career, I compare his season stats from the 2014-15 season (his first All Star season) to the present (a total of 6 seasons). To attempt to analyze Butler, I looked at the career regular season stats of Jimmy Butler in comparison to those of 9 other top NBA small forwards: Lebron James, Kevin Durant, Kawhi Leonard, Paul George, Jayson Tatum, Brandon Ingram, Gordon Hayward, Demar Derozan, and Khris Middleton. As Heat head coach Erik Spoelstra said, “it’s really hard to analyze or describe Jimmy until you feel him between the four lines.” However, when Jimmy G Buckets is on the floor, you know he will elevate his teammates and always compete to win. Now, the question is what makes Butler so special? No, he is not the effortless scorer that Kevin Durant is, nor is he the gifted playmaker that Lebron is. Down 2-0 against the Lakers, Butler put up a 40 point triple-double – one of only 3 in NBA history to do it in the NBA finals – to give the Heat a chance. Love him or hate him, Jimmy Butler defied expectations and brought the Miami Heat to the NBA Finals where they pushed a loaded LA Lakers team to a Game 6. Author: Nicholas Parekh,, (Weinberg ‘22)
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