Any chance Butler is not a first ballot HOFer?

[durantbird]

I saw someone claiming Butler might not be a first ballot Hall of Famer. This sounded pretty disconnected to me, but maybe that's just me. What do you think, if Jimmy retires today, is he?

[Owly]

I don't know that "first ballot" is such a thing in the basketball hall (justified by a bunch of "what does first ballot mean" pages if you google it). But is it conceivable that Butler doesn't get in 4 years after retirement if he retired mid-playoffs ... I think so ... I wouldn't be outraged. I think, generically, it depends who else is eligible that year. If Duncan, KG and Kobe all retire at the same time ... both crowding and optics are going to make it a higher bar for NBA pro player driven cases (not intl, NCAA, female, coach etc). Assuming he keeps playing, doesn't do anything too bad this playoffs 3 very good Miami playoffs with (for playoffs) a decent sample probably pulls him out of the Paul George comp that for a while seemed to be the default. Future performance could affect this but having it happen near consecutively would mean even if the average comes down the spell still looks very good and be more memorable (seen as a "thing").

Fwiw, Reference HoF% probablity has the following active guys above him
James
Durant
Paul
Curry
Harden
Westbrook
Davis
Anthony(? still bolded as active)
Lillard
Antetokounmpo
George
Irving
Lowry
Leonard
Green
Jokic
Love

One doesn't have to think all those should be ahead of him to see if he was in the wrong class it wouldn't be hard to see him pushed out of the picture.