LukaTheGOAT wrote:bballcool34 wrote:Comparing MJ to KD is bizarre considering the former - during his prime - put way more pressure on a defense through attacking the rim. Just a disingenuous comparison and wreaks of an agenda.
Over the past 4 postseasons prior to 2023, the Milwaukee Bucks have held opponents 8.2 points below their regular season offensive rating average. This is the best 4 year playoff stretch of defense in NBA history.
Jimmy Butler offensively, in MJ style, just dismantled them to the tune of about 37.6 ppg on 67.1 TS%. He did it through terrific rim-pressure and midrange shooting in particular.
Butler isn't as long or athletic as MJ, nor does he have as good of shooting touch. He is stronger than, but matched up against a big front-court in the Bucks with arguably the best POA defender in the league who solidly built himself, that advantage is nullified some.
There should be little doubt MJ could be successful in today's game.
Well, a potentially important caveat here is that Bud left Butler in single coverage(along with the centerpiece of the Bucks defense being hobbled and unable to move around like he did for "greatest 4-year playoff defense in history".)
And while his scoring for this specific series may look MJ-esque, his creation does not(at least going via box).
Jimmy's best overall playoff run has him averaging 27 ppg on 60% true-shooting, which is not anywhere close to the clip MJ was scoring at in his best playoffs(and the league is now more efficient).
Even against the Bucks, when matched up with healthy Giannis, he averaged 14 points on 35% true shooting in 2021 and 23 points on 68% true-shooting. Now Butler was injured in 21 so maybe we should just 2020 but that still doesn't even place him as an mj-level scorer(and he trails in terms of creation looking at the box-score, 20% ast: 14% tov).
His best performance from those playoffs against the Lakers had him scoring 27 points on 65% trueshooting. Very good, but obviously not mj-esque(creation is on par).
In short, Butler's offensive production does not come close to matching what Mike managed in his own time. If you define success as "being very good", yes MJ would be very good. But no one in this thread thinks Mj wouldn't be very good.
If Butler is somehow able to keep up this scoring throughout these playoffs against defenses with healthy anchors who are more frequently sending doubles, then you may be onto something, but at the moment, extrapolations beyond "mj would be very good" are premature.
Remember, Heej specifically asserted that MJ's limitations as a playmaker and/or decision maker would be exploited better by the help offered by modern defenses. Butler cooking the Bucks with their defensive anchor limited(we can reference their 3 year regular season average from 21-23(-1.7, peaked at -2.8) to guess the defensively ceiling of the bucks with this Giannis is merely very good) in single coverage is impressive, but isn't necessarily relevant to what Heej asserted.
