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.
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.