How Good is Jimmy Butler?

[2018C3]

I think what people are forgetting, Is well over 1/2 this board was preaching trade butler. If that's not the case, the vocal minority was way louder than the rest that wanted to keep him.

I was pretty neutral to the idea, depending on the return. I did not want to trade him, but at the time thought the return back was fair.

[AshyLarrysDiaper]

JVG is right. Jimmy can’t abandon the three completely, especially since he doesn’t have the lift that he used to around the rim. That’s not something he’s going to fix in this series, obviously, but this offseason he needs to lean into his shot.

That said, has anyone gotten more out of his talent than this guy? He has no business going toe to toe with guys like LeBron and AD, and yet here we are.

[PhilLeotardo]

Jimmys offensive toolkit is so limited. He couldn’t even put on a move when 1:1 with either LeBron or AD. It was kind of embarrassing tbh. Not taking anything away from him, but he’s not an elite level player. He is IMO a great #2 option on a championship team, and we should’ve kept him

[2018C3]

The next closest bull draft pick that maximized there potential may be Rom Artest who was picked 14 spots earlier, and was not as good, but had a nice long 16 year nba career.

It's hard to believe, but Jimmy only been playing in the nba 8 years. It seems longer doesn't it?

[TheJordanRule]

Of all the skills/traits that Jimmy developed, I think the vision/passing is the most bizarre.

You wouldn't think that's a trait that you could just develop in your mid-20s. And yet he's phenomenal at it! It makes no sense.

When Jimmy first told us that he could play point guard, it was next to impossible to believe him, but now he has been proven correct all along. I think we underrated Jimmy as a function of his inability to make big, knock your socks off passes. Jimmy does not have the vision of guys like Rubio, Rondo or Lonzo, guys who usually make a couple of mind-blowing passes each game that are so cerebral that they seem like it came out of nowhere. What Jimmy does is make the most simple straightforward passes that are almost always the right read, and a split second ahead of the defense. He's effective that way. We had an effective 6'5" point guard who was elite at both ends of the floor... and we pigeon-holed him into being a SG. And I'm saying we because I'm including myself in this criticism. I didn't understand what Jimmy was talking about at the time either. When ColdFish talks about how the NBA is trending towards positionless basketball, we need to keep what happened with Jimmy in mind. Let's not make the same assumptions a second time, if /when we find the next Jimmy ten years down the line.

[Mech Engineer]

Of all the skills/traits that Jimmy developed, I think the vision/passing is the most bizarre.

You wouldn't think that's a trait that you could just develop in your mid-20s. And yet he's phenomenal at it! It makes no sense.

When Jimmy first told us that he could play point guard, it was next to impossible to believe him, but now he has been proven correct all along. I think we underrated Jimmy as a function of his inability to make big, knock your socks off passes. Jimmy does not have the vision of guys like Rubio, Rondo or Lonzo, guys who usually make a couple of mind-blowing passes each game that are so cerebral that they seem like it came out of nowhere. What Jimmy does is make the most simple straightforward passes that are almost always the right read, and a split second ahead of the defense. He's effective that way. We had an effective 6'5" point guard who was elite at both ends of the floor... and we pigeon-holed him into being a SG. And I'm saying we because I'm including myself in this criticism. I didn't understand what Jimmy was talking about at the time either. When ColdFish talks about how the NBA is trending towards positionless basketball, we need to keep what happened with Jimmy in mind. Let's not make the same assumptions a second time, if /when we find the next Jimmy ten years down the line.

He is Pippen in a modern form. He needed a Dragic type PG who can handle playmaking but also space the floor. It is the same what Lebron, Luka need. You don't build a modern team with Rose, Westbrook types who dominate the ball. With the switching defenses, athletic defenders ...they can be easily nullified.

The key is your PG should not be a ball dominant player and should be able to play off ball. That's why you CP3, Westbrook have not excelled in the playoffs even though they are HOF players.

[TheFinishSniper]

Rose when he won MVP shoot 3's well enough for guy who couldnt hit 3's. Almost 5 per game at 33% rate. And that was in era where spacing was starting get important. If he never got injured I could see him hit 3's maybe at slightly lower rate at bit higher percentages through next decade.

If Rose never got injured Chicago would have likely won one if not two titles through this last decade. That's a fact. He was miles better and dominated every single PG night through night at age of 22. I can just imagine what he would be doing at 25 or 27. In this scenario I presume Butler still being Bulls and our 2nd option.

I can imagine clearly prime Rose and this Jimmy taking and destroying Lakers and Bron.

[Mech Engineer]

Rose when he won MVP shoot 3's well enough for guy who couldnt hit 3's. Almost 5 per game at 33% rate. And that was in era where spacing was starting get important. If he never got injured I could see him hit 3's maybe at slightly lower rate at bit higher percentages through next decade.

If Rose never got injured Chicago would have likely won one if not two titles through this last decade. That's a fact. He was miles better and dominated every single PG night through night at age of 22. I can just imagine what he would be doing at 25 or 27. In this scenario I presume Butler still being Bulls and our 2nd option.

I can imagine clearly prime Rose and this Jimmy taking and destroying Lakers and Bron.

In hindsight, I don't think Jimmy/Rose would have worked well. The Heat with Wade and Lebron couldn't make it work for long. Rose/Butler are a similar duo. The key is playing off-ball and Rose was never good at it.

[Am2626]

Jimmy Butler is one of my favorite players of all time. He is a top 15 player in the league. But he is not a first option on a championship team. He’s more like a 2nd option. Miami Heat has a good system and good coaching. Thats why they are able to win without Adebayo and Dragic because they are a hard working group of players that outwork thier oppponents. I can’t remember a team less talented than the heat making the finals. Very hard nosed, blue collar team.

I get the narrative that he is not a first option but not sure I fully agree. I used to hands down. I agree he is not a first option like MJ was or even Lebron. That being said is AD a first option? No? Then him and Jimmy are in the same boat. I remember when Kobe wasn’t a first option and he could never win without Shaq. Jimmy Butler literally willed this team that was in no way considered a contender in anyone’s books to the Finals. He puts on a legendary performance in game 3. I dunno I think he is more of a first option than I ever gave him credit for. Hell last year on Philly with that “stacked with talent” team he was first option in the playoffs. I honestly think that you replace Leonard on Toronto last year with Butler and you have a similar outcome.

AD has more talent than Butler but he also has shown that he can’t lead a team to anything by himself. Now if you pair AD with Butler you have a team that can legitimately win a championship.

[sco]

JVG is right. Jimmy can’t abandon the three completely, especially since he doesn’t have the lift that he used to around the rim. That’s not something he’s going to fix in this series, obviously, but this offseason he needs to lean into his shot.

That said, has anyone gotten more out of his talent than this guy? He has no business going toe to toe with guys like LeBron and AD, and yet here we are.

I think that folks under-value work ethic in the NBA. It is less obvious from other guys like LBJ, MJ and Kobe who came in to the league with elite attributes/skills, but who also had that sort of work ethic. Jimmy has got to be top 3 in the NBA in terms of work ethic, and it shows.

[Leslie Forman]

In hindsight, I don't think Jimmy/Rose would have worked well. The Heat with Wade and Lebron couldn't make it work for long. Rose/Butler are a similar duo. The key is playing off-ball and Rose was never good at it.

Wade/Bron only didn't work for long because Wade had no knees. Rose/Butler with a competent front office could've worked just fine. Is Bam Adebayo really any more complimentary on offense to Jimmy than a pre-injury Rose would've been? He basically works in the same areas and doesn't do anything off the ball either.

Surround them with a bunch of Beverleys, Covingtons, KCPs, Morrises, etc. and you got a title.

[chefo]

Let's put it this way--Prime Jimmy instead of Ronnie or Bogans in 2011 and the Bulls easily take out the Heat in the ECF. Probably beat the Mavs handily too, because it was a good matchup for the Bulls. Could they have beaten the Thunder in 2011? Possibly. Spurs later on? Yeah.

They would have lost some series against LeBron, but the Heat were never some kind of super, unbeatable juggernaut, no matter how history is rewritten. A decent Indiana team gave them a run for their money, so did pre-injury Bulls, and so did the Celtics before everybody got too geriatric. The 2010 & 2011 Bulls were the best of that bunch and were a single piece away.

So yeah, if DRose did not blow his knees, Bulls probably would have won a chip or two. Pre-injury Rose was better than his stats and just took it upon himself to dominate any PG he went against. And we still had prime Jo, Taj and Luol who were all excellent defenders. I lineup of prime DRose (before injury), Jimmy, Luol, Taj and Jo would have been a nightmare to play against before the Dubs took the NBA in a different direction.

Korver probably does not get shipped for nothing either. Boozer was not the same after Kwame broke his leg, but was still a useful role-player.

The Bulls were thiiiis close to a short-term mini-dynasty that could have won quite a bit, before the new age Dubs and old age caught up to them. Shame really.

[Ice Man]

I think what people are forgetting, Is well over 1/2 this board was preaching trade butler. If that's not the case, the vocal minority was way louder than the rest that wanted to keep him.

You are correct, that was the case. Either some of those people have since changed their mind or they aren't on this thread.

[weneeda2guard]

We could have landed Chris Paul that offseason. Recruited him with Wade/Butler.

It was 100% doable.

I also remember reading that if cp3 was not available jimmy was talking to Kyle Lowry and recruiting him to join us before he got traded to minny

Watch on YouTube

[PhilLeotardo]

Rose when he won MVP shoot 3's well enough for guy who couldnt hit 3's. Almost 5 per game at 33% rate. And that was in era where spacing was starting get important. If he never got injured I could see him hit 3's maybe at slightly lower rate at bit higher percentages through next decade.

If Rose never got injured Chicago would have likely won one if not two titles through this last decade. That's a fact. He was miles better and dominated every single PG night through night at age of 22. I can just imagine what he would be doing at 25 or 27. In this scenario I presume Butler still being Bulls and our 2nd option.

I can imagine clearly prime Rose and this Jimmy taking and destroying Lakers and Bron.

Not sure if you’re kidding or what, but that actually the polar opposite of a fact. It couldn’t possibly be further from a fact. It’s an unrealistic pipe dream, at best. No team was ever winning a title with Derrick Rose as their best player. He was/is a low-IQ score-first combo guard, who was never going to be - great defender, was never going to be an elite shooter, and who did nothing to elevate his teammates offensively. Those Iverson/Baron-influenced scoring/combo “PGs” have had historically low ceilings. There’s been one lone instance of a team lead by a score-first PG winning a title, and that was the late 80s Pistons, and the league was considerably weaker back then & just a different landscape altogether. I guess maybe you could throw the 2006 Heat in there as well. The point is that the Bulls were never getting past the Heat’s obscene length & depth, no matter who stayed healthy or what they did. They didn’t have any shooters, crappy length, no creators, etc.

Those Thibs-era Bulls teams always had low ceilings, partially because PaxGar would have never allowed them to get very far/no players wanted to come play under them nor psycho Thibs, but also because they absolutely sucked offensively. They were constructed like an antiquated late 80s squad & the league was rapidly experiencing an overall shift in tempo. Those teams were outdated by 2012, nevermind 2016

Literally the only avenue those teams even reach a Finals is if LBJ suffers a season-ending injury, and we know that didn’t happen. And even then, they likely get thumped by whatever WCF team they’re facing. Factor in the looming rise of Oakland/Cleveland, and the Bulls’ chances become slimmer & slimmer every year, especially because they would have never been able to sign a meaningful player under the totalitarian regime, and who knows how/if Butler develops alongside Rose with Rose being his typical ballhog/selfish self

Another interesting fact is that in the 39 games played prior to his knee injury, Rose’s stats were down almost across the board. Relatively considerably, in several categories. I believe the only areas where his stats elevated marginally were rebounds & 3p%, and the % was only due to him chucking up more than previously. It’s shocking how homers will gloss over plain facts in order to push some nostalgic/emotional false narrative.

It’s also amusing to see people act like tearing an ACL is the equivalent of getting your foot amputated LOL “If only he didn’t tear his ACL” Plenty of athletes rebound fine from ACL tears. Most top tier athletes do, in fact. Rose simply wasn’t going to get exponentially better

[SfBull]

I think what people are forgetting, Is well over 1/2 this board was preaching trade butler. If that's not the case, the vocal minority was way louder than the rest that wanted to keep him.

I was pretty neutral to the idea, depending on the return. I did not want to trade him, but at the time thought the return back was fair.

The return back was awful then and after.

[PhilLeotardo]

JVG is right. Jimmy can’t abandon the three completely, especially since he doesn’t have the lift that he used to around the rim. That’s not something he’s going to fix in this series, obviously, but this offseason he needs to lean into his shot.

That said, has anyone gotten more out of his talent than this guy? He has no business going toe to toe with guys like LeBron and AD, and yet here we are.

I think that folks under-value work ethic in the NBA. It is less obvious from other guys like LBJ, MJ and Kobe who came in to the league with elite attributes/skills, but who also had that sort of work ethic. Jimmy has got to be top 3 in the NBA in terms of work ethic, and it shows.

Bryant never came into the league with elite skills nor attributes. That never happened. He wasn’t drafted very high, was very lacklustre throughout his first couple seasons in the league, and was very much viewed as a huge question mark/boom or bust type prospect. He wasn’t even remotely close to MJ coming into the league, much less LBJ. He was closer to Butler coming into the league than the aforementioned two. His improvement into an elite player was unprecedented & attributed to his work ethic

[Truebiscuit]

I've said it a million times, so this will make one million and one: You will NEVER win an NBA title with Jimmy Butler as your best player.

Never.

[Ice Man]

There’s been one lone instance of a team lead by a score-first PG winning a title, and that was the late 80s Pistons

Steph isn't a score-first PG? He led the NBA in scoring 2016. Well I guess that the year that they lost the Finals, but still ... he also scored a lot the year before and the year after.

[Ice Man]

I've said it a million times, so this will make one million and one: You will NEVER win an NBA title with Jimmy Butler as your best player.

Never.

And you were *that close* to being wrong all one million times, because all it took was LBJ to tear his plantar rather than Goran and the Heat would have won the FInals.

But feel free to die on the hill once again.