Brick by Brick: Jimmy Butler
As a big Jimmy Butler fan, I am most certainly very happy with his success in the NBA Finals. But we here at the Brick by Brick headquarters are trying to not be too prone to hyperbole, and I hope I can give some nuance to the conversation surrounding the Heat in the months to come. In the leadup to the playoffs, I wrote about Butler’s potential to be the best player on a Finals team. Though the history books might say that he was that in 2020, I think that label does a disservice to the rest of the team.
I want to try and get some facts straight as we get into things:
- Though the Miami Heat entered the bubble playoffs as a 5-seed, they were not the same team that played the 60-something games in Heat jerseys in the regular season, pre-COVID shutdown. What the hiatus created was an unprecedented moment where players were able to have a four month offseason before entering the playoffs. This greatly benefitted the Heat, as two of their young players, Tyler Herro and Bam Adebayo, both noticeably improved during the time off (to the level of a solid starter and a legitimate All-NBA big man, respectively).
- Goran Dragic started 3 games in the regular season, averaging 16 points in 28 minutes per game. Kendrick Nunn was the primary point guard, receiving a deserved second place finish in Rookie of the Year voting. Fortunately for the Heat, Dragic returned to his 2014 All-NBA form, and became the best player for the Heat at times throughout the bubble. He was able to create offense off the dribble with his speed and passing, something that neither Butler nor Nunn are elite at. He was often the pacemaker for the team when they didn’t have a pulse. With the Heat not having a top 5 player in the league, having a third All-Star level player was necessary for the team to make a deep playoff run.
- The Heat traded Justise Winslow to Memphis in exchange for Jae Crowder and Andre Igoudala at the trade deadline. They played about 20 games with the Heat before the shutdown. Iguodala was clearly not the player he once was by the end of the Warriors’ run, but, with over a year of rest, was able to contribute to the Heat. Both Crowder and Iggy added strong defensive acumen combined with respectable outside shooting. Their size was necessary to the Heat when Bam rested against the Celtics, and especially against the hulking Lakers frontcourt, as Kelly Olynyk and Meyers Leonard barely saw the floor in the playoffs.
- The Heat’s identity shift and overall evolution can probably be summed up with this; their most played lineup in the regular season was Nunn-Robinson-Butler-Adebayo-Leonard. That starting roster — good enough for the 5th seed — was supplemented with a deep bench including Olynyk, Herro, and Derrick Jones Jr, among others. That lineup played next to no minutes in the playoffs, with the primary starting lineup being Dragic-Robinson-Butler-Crowder-Adebayo.
We saw Miami as the 5th seed their record said they were, but they were really not the same team that took the court in September 2019. The Heat did not simply capitalize on the weirdness/variance of the bubble and stumble into the Finals through sheer luck. They were a legit Finals threat on par with the likes of the Raptors, Celtics, and Bucks — teams they also proved to match up well against, the latter two in playoff series. The kneejerk narrative might be that Butler led a 5th seed to the Finals. But for reasons beyond “the Heat wanted to do right by their leader”, his team vastly improved around him.
Secondly, I couldn’t be happier about Butler putting up two all-time Finals games. He’ll always have those as a part of his legacy. More importantly, Butler and the Heat did not roll over after the injuries to Dragic and Bam. Not to be overly dramatic, but fans of the game deserved better than to see the Heat bow out in a sweep. Game 5 was an instant Hardwood Classic, with Butler and Bron throwing haymakers at each other for the last few minutes (more on that later). But this was not a carry job in the vein of ’01 Iverson, ’07 LeBron, or even ’19 Kawhi. This team was closer to the Big 3 Spurs or the 2011 Mavs in the way the role of lead scorer shifted from game to game. Butler averaged 22 points (most on the team), 6 assists (most), and 6.5 rebounds (second most) per game over the course of the playoffs. But don’t let these stats fool you. All five Heat starters, plus Herro, averaged over 11 PPG. And although Butler led the Heat in scoring 5 out of 6 Finals Games, he only led in points 5/15 games in the previous three rounds. There were many games where it was easy to forget Butler was on the floor; that’s not because of any laissez-faire play — his defense was still sound throughout — but because he was not always the focal point of the offense. Bam Adebayo was the clear best player in the Eastern Conference Finals, dominating on both ends. Butler was the team’s 4th-leading scorer in that series, and there’s really no case in the peripheral stats for him being markedly better than the players above him. Obviously Butler was an invaluable part of the team, and by far their best perimeter defender. But I don’t think you can say a player who had multiple teammates average 20 points in a series did it all himself.
The knock on Butler is that he’s good, but not quite good enough to get you a championship as the best player. I don’t think that this run, as strong as it was, disproved that notion. Most Heat fans still hope that a true superstar will sign, with Butler filling the role as second banana. His unwarranted ego and attitude led to his ugly exits in Minnesota and Philadelphia. Some believed that since Butler isn’t a top tier superstar, his play does not entitle him to be so volatile and demanding of his teammates. I still don’t necessarily disagree. I shook my head at Butler claiming to want to leave the Timberwolves for basketball reasons, yet the teams he was willing to play for were the Knicks, Clippers, Lakers, and Heat. I will not defend his contradictions, but he was clearly not lying about his will to win. He’s one of the more charismatic, braggadocious players in the league, but delivered throughout the playoffs by riding the hot hand. He allowed teammates take over when warranted, and let team defense and ball movement dictate the Heat identity, rather than an isolation-heavy style that would boost his numbers in the short term, but likely damage his long-term legacy.
Now that we’ve put his season in context, we can discern the nuances of where Butler stands in our all-time rankings. He had historically great Finals performances, and was the Heat’s best crunch time scorer. But he should also not be considered “best player on a Finals team” in a traditional sense, as the Heat’s relatively equal-opportunity offense allowed them to utilize many players’ strengths, as opposed to just letting Butler carry the entire offensive load. Both statements can be true.
Before the 2020 playoffs, we had Butler pegged at #111 in our Pyramid rankings. I compared Butler to Vince Carter in our Missed the Cut series, and Vince was ranked at #110, which might seem to many to be overrating Jimmy or underrating Vince (or both). Yet both cap out around a 3rd Team All-NBA level, with the potential to make a 2nd Team in a given year. Before this year, neither had been to a Conference Finals. Vince is probably more talented as an athlete and a scorer, but he’s not close to the same defender as Jimmy.
What Butler proved in the Finals is that his ceiling is higher than we had previously imagined. Granted, it’s unfair to project players based on their best or worst games. I don’t think Butler will be a top 5 player in the league next year; I think he will continue to play as a borderline top 10 one, as he has been sporadically for the last several years. But for a team with Finals aspirations, ceiling does matter. Kyrie Irving has not proven to be a historically great player on a nightly basis, but his scoring ability in a crunch time situation will always be more important than Al Horford’s. There are very few players in the NBA who, even at their very hottest, could trade blows with LeBron.
Here is what Manny Navarro of The Athletic wrote:
“If you look at Butler’s two 35-point triple-doubles in a span of three games, both were done with more efficiency than Jerry West, James Worthy or James in their memorable 35-point, triple-double Finals performances.
When West scored 42 with his triple-double in a Game 7 loss to the Boston Celtics in 1969, he finished 14 of 29 from the field. When James Worthy went for 36 with his triple-double in a Game 7 win over the Detroit Pistons in 1988, he took 22 shots. James? In his Game 2 and Game 5, 39- and 40-point performances against the Warriors in 2015, he took 35 and 34 shots, respectively.
When Butler scored 40 in his triple-double performance in Game 3, he was 14 of 20 from the field. On Friday, Butler was 11 of 19 from the field and a perfect 12-for-12 from the free throw line.”
There have been many great Finals performances over the years, and Butler’s stack up favorably with just about anyone else’s. More importantly, the Heat won those games. In the macro view of the Finals, Butler played up to his role over the course of the series. He did not just get hot for two games, but kept the Heat engine running after Dragic and Adebayo went down. He needed to shoulder a greater ball-handling load, and relied on a massive number of dribble handoffs and pick-and-rolls with Robinson and Herro. He continued to do the dirty work on offense, setting screens and battling off-ball. His defensive effort never waned. His scoring came from a variety of jumpers, post moves, and his elite free throw rate. It was not a fluke.
Butler is an interesting case study because I would probably have called him a floor raiser more than a ceiling raiser prior to this years’ playoffs, due to his versatile game. I would still argue that however rare it is to have two historic performances in an NBA Finals, it’s still another thing to perform at that level for an entire season. The definition of the MVP that’s doled out every year is intentionally ambiguous, but no one would argue consistency is inherent to the award. Butler has never consistently played enough at an MVP level for me to think he’ll be in the conversation this upcoming season.
These stats from the Finals are undeniable. Kemp is a similar player to Butler in the sense that at his best he was a top ten guy, but was never top five-ish for an entire season. The highest he ever finished in MVP voting was 7th in ’94 and 8th in ’96. Butler’s best is 10th in ’19. Yet both were able to match Jordan and LeBron’s output in most of their respective series. This table is not the be all end all, but there are no stats that indicate any major difference in performance.
Few players have ever of Kemp and Butler’s magnitude have ever shifted the narrative on their ability so much in a single series, by essentially playing the best player in the league to a standstill. I’ve heard multiple people argue that Kemp actually outplayed Jordan in ’96. Others will also say that ’96 was the closest the Bulls came to losing in the Finals (the closest they ever came to losing a series was the ’98 ECF versus the Pacers). Simply put the Bulls team was probably better overall. In the Lakers-Heat case, if you were to argue Butler played LeBron to a draw (I still think LeBron was slightly better overall), then Butler wasn’t given much chance from the rest of the team, with injuries to Bam and Dragic, and Davis dominating Bam when he did play.
The Heat absolutely came into the series as underdogs, and one could argue not having Dragic or Bam benefits Jimmy’s legacy; given that the Heat pushed the Lakers to 6 games with two of their top three players severely limited, we can always wonder what could have been. It’s similar to the Cavaliers in 2015, where the 67-win Warriors that finished the season 2nd in offense and 1st in defense entered the playoffs as heavy favourites against the league. Then, Love and Irving went down, and LeBron dragged the Cavs to an impressive six game series. It’s very possible the Cavs lose in 6 games at full strength, but because LeBron did what he did on his own (with the help of Delly), people remember it as a coinflip series.
Butler’s accolades
- 5x All-Star
- 3x All-NBA Third Team
- 4x All-Defensive Second Team
- Best player* on Finals Runner-up
As mentioned, Butler was ranked #111 overall in our Pyramid rankings. This is behind a glut of great modern forwards like Kevin Love, Blake Griffin, Amar’e Stoudemire, LaMarcus Aldridge, as well as Shawn Kemp. You could probably order these guys however you’d like and I wouldn’t take huge issue. All of them have two or more 2nd Team All-NBA nominations, and there isn’t really a year where Butler was snubbed as a top four forward. One could argue the forward position over the last several years is as deep as it’s ever been from 1–6: LeBron, Durant, Kawhi, Giannis, Butler, George, Draymond, Griffin, Aldridge, Hayward, Love, and more recently Siakam, Tatum, Simmons, and more, all vying for 6 spots. There are no Kevin Willises or Juwan Howards sneaking into a 3rd Team spot. At the same time, Butler has not put together a convincing 1st Team-level season like Stoudemire, Griffin, or Love. He won Most Improved Player in 2015, but was not an All-NBA/borderline top 10–15 talent until the 2017 season. But even during his messy Minnesota stint was still an All-NBA level player, and in a different world would have battled Blake Griffin for the final Third-Team spot in 2019.
I concede that I am a fairly big Jimmy Butler fan, but I don’t think his two-way play and ability to take over in crunch time is overrated in any real way. He was comfortably behind Paul George after PG’s MVP level season, and now that narrative has rightfully been flipped on its head. He would certainly benefit massively from a season of that magnitude, but I don’t expect him to be much better in the regular season than he was this past year. If anything, his role could diminish, with Herro, Robinson, and Adebayo continuing to improve into players that can put the ball on the floor and create for the Heat offense. It’s a good thing Butler is not in the Thunder offense; if he was, we wouldn’t be talking about him now.
Looking at these stats from the past 4 years, Butler looks like the stronger player. In spite of their playoff performances, I still think it is very close. George’s 3 point shooting ability is world class. And his defense at its best is probably slightly better, something these stats don’t reflect either. George is at #93 as of right now because he has been better for longer, missed prime years due to injury rather than chemistry, and has an MVP caliber season.
Jimmy Butler versus Vince Carter was already an apt comparison in my opinion, and this Finals definitively launches him over Vinsansity in the same way Vince launched himself over Frederic Weis.
So, it’s a matter of how high he leaps. I think there is an argument to put Butler over Kyrie Irving now; Kyrie’s standing hasn’t really improved since he hit his Finals-winning shot in 2016, despite earning three more All-Stars and an All-NBA 2nd Team. But I think Butler will need to carve out a couple more years to cement his regular season status as definitively better next to Irving’s. Dave Bing was sitting at #100 at one point, and continues to drop in our evolving rankings. Bill Simmons alludes to it in his chapter of The Book of Basketball, but as we have begun delving deeper into older NBA stars, Bing stands out as a highly overrated figure. I have no trouble putting Butler ahead of him. Putting Jimmy ahead of Kevin Love and Blake Griffin is a tougher choice; they have both put together elite playoff runs and great regular seasons. I honestly think the Clippers’ collapse versus the Rockets in 2015 is enough for me to give Butler the edge here, though. I can’t have Butler over Chauncey Billups, who is a similar two-way player to Butler, but has an NBA title. Billups also won the Finals MVP for the 2004 Pistons, a team that the Heat coincidentally drew many comparisons to this year with their team-oriented play.
So, Jimmy Butler goes from a maybe controversial #111 all the way to #101. That may seem like too small a leap for a player who just had such a run of greatness, but fortunately for Jimmy he has years to add to his legacy. Both Chicago and Philadelphia decided they didn’t want someone of his age, skill, and style, and he proved them wrong. Given how hard a worker he is, I assume he will continue to prove doubters wrong.
