Firstly, I’m replying without having read other replies. So I apologize if some of these points have already been expressed; not meaning to pile it on. This is just my fresh take, without influence.
Secondly, the general query [in the title] is a fair question to ask.
That said, you seem to be launching the question from a position of Miller being overrated as an almost foregone conclusion……..but you do that while omitting a great number of details relating to Miller’s career (which I’ll go into more below).
There also seems to be an implication that if Butler were to enter the top 75 [which at this point, he SHOULD be in there imo, and probably comfortably so], it would be
Reggie Miller who should be displaced. Fwiw, I think there are a number of other more likely candidates for displacement.
And finally, you’re coming at the comparison with some fatally flawed [or at least near-sighted/incomplete] methods…..
For example, citing only per-game box stats [and not even all of them], while completely omitting mention of shooting efficiency, team results and context, impact, game analysis, and so on.
Further, you’re comparing CAREER averages…..of a guy with a 12-year career to a guy with an 18-year career. If the league FORCED Jimmy Butler to play in the league until he was 39, no matter how much he deteriorates with age/injury, just forces him to keep going to see where his 18-year averages are, do you think he’ll still [for instance] be within 0.5 ppg of Miller?
Or put another way, what if we compared only the first 12 years of Miller’s career to Butler’s 12-year career?.......Miller’s ppg average would then be +2.0 to Butler’s (he no longer has all those post-prime years dragging his average down).
One might also marginally question the use of per-game numbers when comparing eras of somewhat differing average pace. The average pace during Butler’s career is about 97; the average for Miller’s career is a little over 93.
These things create “problems” in just comparing career averages.
We’ve also failed to make any consideration at all of offensive efficiency so far.
Jimmy Butler is about +3.2% rTS for his career (peaked just this year at about +6.6% rTS). Miller
averaged [over an 18-year career] +8.5% rTS (peaking at +12.6% rTS in ‘91).
To put that in perspective: the difference in their respective shooting efficiencies is roughly the same as the difference between prime Michael Jordan
and the league average during Jordan’s prime years.
To be fair, though: Jimmy Butler has the superior turnover economy. So one might be able to argue it’s almost a wash [or only slight/negligible edge to Miller] in terms of overall offensive efficiency…..at least based on what the box-score *tracks.
*It’s worth noting there are some things of offensive value that the box-score does NOT track. Like plays [for teammates] that are created by one’s off-ball movement and gravity.
The following is a detailed text description of a play which transpires in mere seconds in realtime. But please try to imagine it in your mind’s eye, if you will…..
Vern Fleming has the ball at the top of the key, Reggie Miller is on the right wing. Reggie makes a hard oblique cut toward the right low block—running his man into a Dale Davis screen—as he makes a slight left turn along the baseline, before veering hard from the baseline on the left side of the key toward the left wing—running his man thru a second screen [by Rik Smits] near the left block. His man was able to kinda-sorta halfway slip the first screen, but the second one has held him up enough that he’s now lost Miller…….so Rik Smits’ defender hedges out toward the wing following Miller (because he doesn’t want to leave Reggie Miller uncontested at the 3pt line), while Miller’s defender has finally slipper around Smits and is desperately trying to recover his man—>suddenly Rik Smits is standing there with nothing between him and the basket. So Fleming rifles a pass to Smits, who makes an uncontested layup/dunk.
Rik Smits will be credited with a made FG and 2 pts. Vern Fleming will be credited with an assist. Reggie Miller will be credited with nothing, even though it was his tireless off-ball movement and offensive gravity that created the open look for Smits (and all Fleming had to do was pound the ball at the top of the key until Smits was open).
If you watch ANY Pacer game from the 90s, you will see AT LEAST 2-3 similar instances if you’re watching for them. Such plays were happening
all the time on Reggie’s teams.
There are various permutations of the same basic play: maybe when Smits catches the pass, Dale Davis’s defender rotates over to contest him, and Smits drops the ball off to Davis who makes the dunk [or gets fouled by yet another rotating defender]; maybe Smits gets fouled by Davis’s rotating defender (maybe it’s two FT’s in these instances, or maybe it’s occasionally an And1). Or maybe Smits’ defender rotates out to cover Miller, but they’re able to communicate well enough that Miller’s defender DOESN’T continue to chase, and sticks with Smits…….no one is left wide open, but there’s now a massive mismatch with the 7’4” Smits being guarded in the post by someone around 6’5”.
You get the idea. In basically all permutations, the Pacers get an excellent scoring opportunity…….one which Miller will receive no individual credit for, but which was nonetheless primarily created by him.
The effect of these things perhaps becomes perceptible when you look at the Pacer ORtg throughout Miller’s career. In a league that has the Michael Jordan Bulls, the Stockton/Malone Jazz, the Magic Lakers (thru ‘91), the Bird Celtics (into the early 90s), after which the Shaq/Penny Magic came into being (by the end of the 90s there was the Shaq/Kobe Lakers taking shape); there were the Barkley Sixers and KJ Suns, then the Barkley/KJ Suns; there were Drexler/Porter Trailblazers and the Price/Daugherty/Nance Cavs in the early 90s, as well as Run TMC in Golden State, then the Payton/Kemp/Schrempf/Hawkins Sonics and Olajuwon/Drexler Rockets in the 2nd half of the decade; and so on……here is where the Miller/Smits/[Fleming or Jackson et al] Pacers ranked in ORtg by year among that crowd during the bulk of Miller’s prime:
‘90: 7th [of 27]
‘91: 7th
‘92: 6th
‘93: 5th
‘94: 11th
‘95: 8th
‘96: 6th [of 29]
‘97: 15th
‘98: 4th
‘99:
1st‘00:
1stIf we look at his individual league rank in AuPM [Augmented Plus-Minus] beginning in ‘94….
‘94: tied [with Charles Barkley and Shaquille O’Neal] for 10th
‘95: tied [with G.Payton and Reggie Williams] for 34th
‘96: 15th [just behind Hakeem Olajuwon]
Beginning in ‘97 we have RAPM available (looking at NPI for ‘97, PI after that [as is appropriate for a player in the heart of his prime])....
‘97: ranked somewhere around 45-50 (though still solid positive)
‘98: 13th
‘99: 26th
‘00: 17th
Not that impact metrics should be used in such a manner, but if we
did equate his rank in these things to his league rank as a player, he’s solidly into All-NBA 2nd/3rd Team territory for about half of these seven years, and ranks as a fringe/borderline All-Star in at least one another…….and these don’t even include what were arguably his BEST years, which took place in the early 90s.
And fwiw, if we factored in minutes/games played in each of these years, he'd climb the ranks slightly most years.
It begins to look like maybe he was a bit underrated as a player.
It’s common among both casual fans and media [who largely have a casual fan knowledge base of game/player analysis themselves] to overrate based on volume. If they’re looking at one guy who averages 22 ppg on +4% rTS and another who averages 20 ppg on +12% rTS, they likely conclude the first guy is the better scorer (because hey: 2 more points). But based on only this information, such a conclusion would be highly erroneous, imo.
And let’s not forget he’s in a small market, too, which can tend to be overlooked by both fans and media.
These are considerations if one is assessing by media accolades, such as All-Star selections and the like. But let’s take a little closer look at that…..
In ‘91, Miller averaged 22.6 ppg, 3.4 rpg, 4.0 apg, with just 2.0 topg and
+12.6% rTS......and he was NOT selected as an All-Star.
Meanwhile, Ricky Pierce, with 20.5 ppg, 2.4 rpg, 2.2 apg, 1.9 topg and +5.2% rTS [and probably
worse defense] WAS selected as an All-Star in the East (
at same position as Reggie).
Also selected at Reggie’s position in Reggie’s conference was Hersey Hawkins.
If we’re rating players based on such accolades, does that sound like they got it right?
Also worth noting that Kevin Duckworth WAS an All-Star [in the West] that same year (he wasn’t even a starter-level player).
Or let’s look at ‘92….
Reggie averaged 20.7 ppg @ +9.8% rTS, 3.9 rpg, 3.8 apg, and 1.9 topg for a low-level playoff team [that ranked 6th of 27 teams offensively], and was NOT an East All-Star.
Michael Adams was a PG averaging 17.6 ppg @ -2.5% rTS, 4.0 rpg, 7.6 apg, and 2.7 topg for a 25-win team [that ranked 24th of 27 teams offensively, fwiw], and he was selected as an East All-Star.
Does that seem like they got it right?
In ‘93…..
Reggie averaged 21.2 ppg @ +8.1% rTS, 3.1 rpg, 3.2 apg, 1.8 topg again for a low-level playoff team [that ranked 5th offensively], and was NOT an East All-Star.
Late-career Isiah Thomas averaged 17.6 ppg @ -4.8% rTS, 2.9 rpg, 8.5 apg with 3.6 topg for a team that just missed the playoffs [ranked just 18th of 27 offensively], and he WAS an East All-Star.
In ‘94….
Reggie averaged 19.9 ppg @ +10.8% rTS [league-best, fwiw], 2.7 rpg, 3.1 apg with 2.2 topg, and was NOT an East All-Star.
BJ Armstrong averaged 14.8 ppg @ +1.9% rTS, 2.1 rpg, 3.9 apg with 1.6 topg and WAS an East All-Star.
Is that right?
In ‘97 (and bear in mind the next three years listed here were super-slow paced, suppressing the per game averages)….
Reggie averaged 21.6 ppg @ +6.7% rTS, 3.5 rpg, 3.4 apg with 2.0 topg [admittedly for a mediocre team]; was NOT an East All-Star. To be fair, there isn’t a guard on the East team that was clearly lesser than him this year, but there are multiple who are debatable against him [Terrell Brandon, aging Joe Dumars], and there were at least 1 or 2 selections at OTHER [non-guard] positions who were clearly worse (e.g. Vin Baker).
In ‘99 there
was no All-Star game because of the player holdout-shortened season. But fwiw, Reggie averaged 18.4 ppg @ +7.9% rTS, 2.7 rpg, 2.2 apg, and just 1.5 topg for the league-best offense, a team that went to the ECF.
In ‘01….
Reggie averaged 18.9 ppg @ +5.6% rTS, 3.5 rpg, 3.2 apg, and only 1.6 topg [admittedly for only a mediocre team]; was NOT an East All-Star.
But Allan Houston [same position, similar player type]---who averaged 18.7 ppg @ +2.5% rTS, 3.6 rpg, 2.2 apg, 2.1 topg [for a slightly better team]---
was.
So was Latrell Sprewell [same position]: 17.7 ppg @ -2.1% rTS, 4.5 rpg, 3.5 apg, 2.8 topg [though better defensively].
Jerry Stackhouse [same position] was also honoured in the East for dropping nearly 30 ppg, though on only +0.3% rTS and with >4 topg for a 32-win team.
Stephon Marbury was filling up the box-score, but for a 26-win team [that was ranked 24th of 29 offensively], and while missing 15 games [Reggie only missed 1]; and Starbury was an East All-Star.
Is it right that
all four of them were selected over Reggie? (guys like Antonio Davis were also All-Stars in the East that year, too)
The point is there were SEVERAL years where Miller
could have (and in most instances,
should have) been an All-Star, but wasn’t.
To be fair [within the context of this particular comparison], Butler was also snubbed some years. Not as many times, though.
As a last comment, I don’t quite understand the point of repeatedly bringing up how it took Jimmy Butler a couple years to work up to being a double-digit scorer.
That’s on him. It’s part of the package that is Jimmy Butler’s career. To give him some sort of pass or excuse on that is to [within the context of this comparison] essentially
penalize Miller for being a double-digit scorer right out of the gate.
Anyway, at the end of all this, it’s fine to think Butler should rank ahead of Miller all-time, if that’s what you’re saying. Depending on your criteria, that could be defensible at this point. I’d very likely agree Butler has peaked higher.
But Reggie’s got six seasons on him (and was
at worst a decent starter-level player in seasons 13-18), and was far more durable throughout. These are not insignificant details to those who utilize a total career value or cumulative championship odds added type of methodology for analysing players.
Just saying that Reggie was A LOT better than “18.2 ppg” and “5x All-Star”.
"The fact that a proposition is absurd has never hindered those who wish to believe it." -Edward Rutherfurd
"Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities." - Voltaire
