My pick is Anthony Edwards. He’s great, but people talking about MVP potential need to slow it down.

  • Andy_Wiggins@fediverser.communick.devB
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    1 year ago

    Probably Jimmy Butler.

    He’s very good, and has been a top player at points in the playoffs.

    But he’s only a very good player during the regular season rather than great. He’s had absolutely heroic performances in the playoffs, but he’s also quietly had a number of stinkers that seem to get ignored or hand-waved away. He’s also quite possibly the single worst foul-bater in the league. People (justifiably) bring up Trae, Harden, and Embiid, but Butler has had a higher free-throw rate than all of them for the past 4 years or so.

    People putting him top 10 have an argument: some of his playoff performances have you thinking he’s top 3. But they make up like 9% of the season. During the rest of the season, he’s more like top 20 or 25. Not saying that a random game against Detroit in February is worth the same as doing what he did against Milwaukee, but it feels like Reddit thinks he’s unimpeachable when he really is great mostly in spurts.

    • honestnbafan@fediverser.communick.devB
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      1 year ago

      He’s also talked about in a weirdly mythical way with the MJ comparisons that not even some players who have actually lead their teams to championships get

      The way people wax poetic about “playoff Jimmy” you’d think he has like 3 rings or something

      • WhoopingKing@fediverser.communick.devB
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        1 year ago

        if we look at all-time playoff games with a game score of 40.0 or higher, nobody in nba history has more such games than butler. nobody

        not Jordan. not LeBron. all of them have six such games actually, although LeBron had 39.8 and 39.9 gmsc a couple times

        is it really surprising to see people over rate him?

    • GOATnamedFields@fediverser.communick.devB
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      1 year ago

      Yeah but witht his logic, Joel Embiid is the best player in the NBA. He won MVP, he was the best regular season player last season.

      Playoffs matter more. No one considers Embiid better than Jokic or Giannis and plenty of people put him below Steph, Luka, Tatum, etc.

      So if Embiid isn’t gonna be considered the best player in the NBA, then JB is going to be elevated because he’s won 2 Easts with Bam Adebayo and bums. And outplayed Lebron in the Finals. And had some crazy series.

      100% is a top 10 player even if he averages 5,5,5 in the regular season as long as he pulls up in the playoffs this much.

      • FKJVMMP@fediverser.communick.devB
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        1 year ago

        Bam Adebayo and bums

        Absolutely nobody who saw the Heat in those two runs should be considering that support cast “bums”. Who gives a shit if Duncan Robinson usually kinda sucks if he can go out and shoot 74% from three to help you knock out the one seed.

        • EternallyEuphoric@fediverser.communick.devB
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          1 year ago

          The tale of Duncan’s three point shooting in the playoffs.

          A spectacular (14/19) vs the bucks, proceeds to crash back down to earth vs the Knicks (12/42), becomes great again vs the Celtics (15/31), and finally is a complete non factor vs the nuggets (1/3)

          But for real the only reason we beat you is because of him. Not including jimmy only bam had more than 17 PPG (17.4 PPG).

          Bucks had 4 different guys hit that mark. Lowest was Jrue (17.8 PPG)

          That series was a one man carry job.

    • WhenItsHalfPastFive@fediverser.communick.devB
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      1 year ago

      People love to forget about Jimmy’s 2021 first round exit, one of the most embarrassing sweeps I’ve ever seen, and arguably the worst performance I’ve ever seen from a star player of Jimmy’s caliber. 25% Fg, 26% 3pt, got outplayed by Brynn Forbes.

      Obviously he’s more than made up for it with his overall resume, but it’s still such a weird outlier.

      • DyslexicAutronomer@fediverser.communick.devB
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        1 year ago

        I would ding people mentally for being more foul baitish, since that depends on a favorable whistle.

        And in that line of think, I usually place Jimmy, SGA, Austin Reeves and Embiid lower than the popular consensus.

        Which is funny because all of them besides Embiid appears on this post.