hugepatsfan wrote:On the whole narrative that he saves himself in the regular season and then turns it on in the playoffs... Jimmy Butler has played 64 playoff games with the Heat. In 20 of them, he's shot 40% from the floor or worse. He's missed 7 games as well.
The Heat don't have the same target on their back with the media as other deep playoff teams. They always get looked at as the little engine that could rather than dealing with burden and scrutiny of expectations. So Jimmy Butler gets the luxury of only being looked at for his great moments. He gets all the love for that, but it's ignored how one third of the time he either isn't available for his team or he shoots like crap.
Not trying to discredit that he's a great player. Just discredit the false narrative that he's a championship caliber #1 offensive player. His resume doesn't actually speak to that if you look deeper than the highlights of it. So for Miami, I think it gets tougher to justify super max contracts for non first option 35 year olds when the rest of the roster isn't enough to elevate the talent level to championship caliber.
Bad take.
In 4 playoff seasons with Miami, Butler has a WS/48 of .206, a BPM of 7.2. Those are absolutely elite numbers - better than Luka, Tatum, Durant and Paul George. His TS% is a pedestrian .581, but he averages 25, 7 and 6 while never turning the ball over and playing first rate defense. His ORtg is still an incredibly efficient 129.
You can certainly argue that Butler may not have as much value going forward because he can't stay healthy, but don't try and rewrite history to suggest he was only mediocre in the playoffs. He has been one of the very best playoff players in the league during his Miami run. I'm not sure if anyone has better advanced numbers except Giannis and Jokic.
