A Deep Dive Into Jimmy Butler
A deep dive into Butler's "down" season & if that's going to be a concern going forward
In the upcoming days, we’ll be taking a look at each key player for the Miami Heat in more depth. We’ll be taking a deep dive into the kind of season they just had, what they showed, what they were good at, what still needs to be worked on, what do they need to make a potential leap, and projecting what their season is and should look like.
So, Jimmy Butler had himself a season. Not sure exactly what kind of a season, though. If you go and check his simple box-score stats, it’s on par with the rest of his seasons with the Miami Heat. In each year he’s at least a 20-5-5 still gets to the line a lot. And yet, this season has felt different.
This was definitely a down season from Butler if we’re comparing him to what he was showing last year. But at the same time, it would’ve been tough to replicate a career year at age 34 after finishing the season with an injury. That 2023 was elite by all metrics, so it was likely to have regressed from that. But compared to every other year, particularly his 2022 season, it was around the same.
And still, I found myself be annoyed with Butler more frequently. There’s been way more signs of potential declines. There’s been way more coasting than usual. He was deferring a lot more. The switch wasn’t switching when the team needed him to the most.
It all got to the point where it lead to me genuinely thinking that the Heat should at least consider the possibility of moving on from him, especially given his contract situation.
So, let’s go through exactly what has changed for Butler, why it was a down year for him, and what should be the realistic expectations going forward!
The first thing about Butler this season is how lower his usage and touches were compared to himself over the years and to others on the team. That was the biggest difference for him this year because a lot of the times it was with him deferring and being used differently.
He averaged 64.4 touches per 36 minutes this year. Here are his touches since 2020:
76.0 → 83.0 → 73.1 → 68.2
That is significantly down to what he’s usually done and it’s a very noticeable difference. Whether the reasons are valid because of injuries or needing to save himself more through 82 games is a different discussion. But this was a change. This wasn’t something that we ever seen from Butler and all of the notion that he always coasts is objectively wrong. He never coasted like this.
Even in other metrics provided by BBall-Index, a lot of them are down:
Lowest initiator rate
2nd lowest on-ball action share
2nd lowest offensive involvement rate
Lowest scoring possession per 75
Lowest total offensive load
Lowest touches per 75
Lowest true usage%
Here are also the percentage of games with 25% usage or higher over the years:
50% → 61% → 66% → 65% → 40%
Here’s the same thing but with 30% usage:
17% → 29% → 21% → 25% → 15%
What’s even more discouraging is that this bled into his lower usage as a passer. Per BBall-Index, he had his lowest grade in passing creation volume.
Here are the percentage of games with 30% AST:
50% → 59% → 31% → 39% → 26%
Before whenever we talked about Butler coasting, it meant as a scorer. That was the big difference. He was never passive or never looked to get the offense going by being a facilitator. Even with lower usage, he was aggressive in creating shots. That wasn’t felt this year:
That stood out a lot in the Nuggets games where routinely he either didn’t attack the mismatch entirely, half-assed it, or sat in the corner as they Patty Mills was handling the ball. May be exaggerating but 90% of the Heat’s offensive issues came from that. It came from Butler treating himself as if his role on the team with the starters on should be in the corner away from the actions.
With both Adebayo and Herro on the court, Butler averaged 20.9 points per 75 possessions on 66% true shooting… with only 20% usage. Without them that jumped to 26.7 points on 61% with 28% usage. Here’s a comparison of other top players without two of their main guys:
Both numbers are still much lower, even compared to the older stars. This whole inconsistency with not knowing whether you’re getting a locked in(that was still showing flashes) Butler or Butler Highsmith.
Here was a game breakdown of his performance against the Kings where I looked into some key possessions of him showing that aggression. There is a clear difference when he is engaged and in those times, it’s the same old Butler. That’s when he can look to be a facilitator because he’s still engaging the defense.
But let’s get to when he was actually playing or being involved because there were signs of a decline, especially with the consistency.
That’s another point because when discussing these potential declines, it’s not simply saying he’s washed or that he will never show any good games. Butler is still a very, very good player that’s top 25 in the league. That has never changed. It’s the consistency and the upper gear that changes, though. Butler’s best of the best is slightly worse now. Butler’s consistency isn’t as consistent as it was in prior years. And when you’re standard is elite of the elite, the margins are really small that make a huge difference.
Butler’s main strengths have always been the rim pressure, finishing at the rim, and getting to the line. You can see that there are still so many plays where he does exactly what he has always done:
But all of that has still significantly declined. Here are his rim frequency, rim FG%, % of shots blocked at the rim, and free throw rate:
2020: 37.8% / 63.7% / 9.0% / .693
2021: 41.4% / 67.2% / 7.5% / .565
2022: 37.0% / 66.8% / 4.5% / .549
2023: 40.4% / 67.7% / 7.8% / .625
2024: 35.2% / 63.8% / 10.0% / .579
The lowest rim rate, the second lowest accuracy, and getting blocked the most times. Here are some other rim stats per BBall-Index amongst on-ball players:
It’s not all bad. He hasn’t dropped off where it’s one of the worst, but it’s significant enough that you can see the difference.
A lot of that is noticeable in how he approaches attacking now. There are times as seen in the video above there are gears that he can still hit where he’s getting past his man with ease. But there are many times where his PNR is the most pointless action because he doesn’t do anything to force help or create a shot for himself.
Making matters worse is that the shot that was highly effective for Butler last year, isn’t at the level anymore. That’s why Butler had a career year last year and why he was all-around so impactful on offense. He was still getting to the rim at a high level and had the mid-range as a weapon too. He shot 43.9% from 4-14ft this year, down from 48.7%.
Here is his mid-range shooting from other distance
In comparison to other years, it’s nothing significant. But dropping from last year is where the noticeable difference comes in. Now, with also worse finishing stats, having to rely more on the mid-range but not being as effective will show up more.
This might also be a reason why he has been looking to up his 3pt shooting:
For some reason, his 3-point shooting volume off the catch disappeared once he got to Miami. Before that, he was a respectable off-the-catch shooter. There were even years with pretty decent volume. He has shown more willingness to shoot this year, and I’m hoping that is to stay.
He can save himself a lot more by jumping in head first in being a shooter. There are still so many possessions where he was in a position to shoot, but constantly looks to hesitate and kills any potential advantage.
Another thing that has stood out a lot more is all of his playmaking stats, especially compared to 2021:
Again, when discussing the elite of the elite that are the best players on a team, small margins matter. These declines across the board are noticeable.
I think one of the reasons for the low passing creation quality is a mix of simply Butler not being a good enough passer and because of the passivity, he isn’t drawing enough defense to create those looks in the first place. It’s tough to create any shots if the only thing you do is keep every action 2v2 because you didn’t force the defense to react.
Let’s also look at some of his play types too:
Isolation:
2020: 9.7% / 0.95 / 43.7%
2021: 9.6% / 0.91 / 40.9%
2022: 14.5% / 1.01 / 46.1%
2023: 16.2% / 1.05 / 47.6%
2024: 15.3% / 1.07 / 46.6%
His isolation is still effective when needed. There are plenty of games where he is engaged and can do the usual things that he’s always done. One good indicator of that is whenever he whips out that shimmy move that gets by defenders with ease. Everything about his isolation work depends on how engaged he is — but the conversation around the consistency of him being engaged is what matters here.
Pick and roll ball handler:
2020: 35.5% / 0.86 / 37.5%
2021: 33.5% / 0.92 / 43.2%
2022: 21.9% / 0.92 / 43.2%
2023: 24.9% / 1.09 / 49.6%
2024: 20.7% / 0.84 / 37.3%
This isn’t surprising. Both the usage or the efficiency being the lowest is kind of expected. He was used more off-ball in the first place and whenever he did run the PNR, as we saw, he was a lot more passive. He wasn’t going to be getting to the rim at will, especially in the team’s context.
Post ups:
2020: 6.8% / 1.01 / 46.2%
2021: 6.2% / 1.03 / 52.0%
2022: 12.7% / 1.00 / 44.6%
2023: 10.3% / 0.94 / 46.4%
2024: 10.7% / 0.83 / 38.2%
Related to that is the post ups because if he’s not getting to the rim and is instead looking to get those mid-range shots, but his shot has dropped from the last few years, there are no other ways of generating efficient looks.
One point about all of these actions after going through the clips is that a lot of them are set up to be assisted. Even if they end in an isolation or post up, they start off with him being without the ball coming off screens to get him into that position. A lot of the times, he curls and goes for the shot immediately.
That’s why 53.9% of his shots at the rim are assisted. That’s the highest since 2019. That’s also why 32.8% of his short mid-range is assisted. That’s the highest since 2015. He has to preserve his body in that way. The only issue is it mostly gets him those mid-range or paint shots, that he’s not great at outside of last year.
When it comes to his impact metrics, it’s both good and bad, depending on how you look at it
Here are his EPM & LEBRON ranks over the years:
EPM: 11th → 6th → 15th → 5th → 21st
LEBRON: 6th → 5th → 12th → 4th → 25th
First time in the five years that he’s out of the top 20. Here’s his offense and defense EPM by numbers too because that shows signs too:
O-EPM: +3.1 → +3.8 → +3.2 → +5.1 → +3.5
D-EPM: +1.8 → +2.7 → +1.3 → +1.8 → +0.8
His offense is on par with his other years. That’s not an issue. It’s the defense. If you want to judge Butler and how he looks, it’s what he does on defense. That was consistently inconsistent. It’s only a few plays here but this was the effort saw more often than ever before. He had a 1.9% steal rate, which would be the lowest since his rookie year. He also had a 0.8% block rate, which would be the lowest in his career.
But then there is a switch that’s flipped and he looks like this. His IQ with the passing lane was still at an elite level. Even if there’s a decline, it’s not that steep:
That’s the whole issue with Butler. Inconsistency. I would say that there has been a dip in terms of what his absolute best can be, but the bigger issue is just that the switch is hard to click. Maybe this wasn’t going to be an issue in the playoffs. Maybe this was all about him saving himself. Maybe this was dealing with injuries and instead of being healthy, it was about him recovering.
That itself is an issue though. There were reports that he’s been dealing with injuries throughout the season and that played a big part in why he was playing that way. That’s neither positive nor encouraging, especially at this age — especially, given he ended the season with a lower-body injury.
It’s also a shame that we didn’t see him in the playoffs. That is the place where we could’ve seen more evidence of is Butler done or not. That is where he ups his touches significantly and every possession looks to be more aggressive. Right now, all we’ve seen from Butler is that he dropped back to normal range(compared to him) but was needing to save himself more. We don’t know yet if “when” the switch is hit if he can still produce at a top 10 level. We also don’t know if the switch can be hit in the first place and the fact that it can’t be to that extent in the regular season, it’s discouraging.
So, where does that leave Butler heading into the season?
I guess I’m more hopeful based on what the reports have been saying. If there were other issues with injuries throughout the season that hindered him and they may not be as bad now, then that’s encouraging.
But at the same time, he did again finish the season injured… And he is getting older.
That’s why I don’t think this was a kind of season from him because he was unmotivated, coasting, or doing it by choice. There are reports saying that he will be in killer mode, playing to prove himself in his contract year.
That’s only encouraging if you believe he was coasting a lot more by choice, willingly… instead of his body simply not allowing him to. That’s where there’s some skepticism. I don’t think a lot of those issues were simply because of a mindset shift. For all we know, Butler may have wanted to be more locked in last year, but he knew he couldn’t.
I’m not out on him completely. I don’t think you can’t win with him. But he needs a lot more help. I don’t think you can also expect him to play at an All-NBA calibre level consistently enough and step up in the playoffs. And at this point in his career, the coasting can’t just be how he was coasting before. It would be asking for too much to even ask him to.
That’s why at the start of the off-season, I did think that if they don’t get a top 15 calibre player on offense to help Butler with the offensive responsibilities, then it’s going to be a struggle.
I still believe that had that been done, then I could see Butler flipping the switch in the playoffs. Even with all of the declines and coasting, I don’t know if I can ever fully get to the point where I won’t believe that he can flip the switch in the playoffs — at this point, he has earned the benefit of the doubt.
BUT! That is less important than actually winning enough to be in the playoffs. Two years in a row they found themselves in the second play in against the Bulls in a do-or-die moment. In a one game sample, anything can happen, even against a better team or the team with the best player.
And throughout the year, Butler may still need to coast just as much as he did last year. There isn’t a track record of players 35 years old or older carrying so much of the offense and being good — it’s literally only Stephen Curry and LeBron James when considering the help too.
I don’t know how big of a change there’s going to be in the consistency from Butler, at least to what extent. Maybe the highs will be higher, but how many of those highs will we see?
In terms of the impact on the Heat, they still badly need him. They had a 117.7 ORTG with him on and 110.9 without him. I don’t envision that changing. They’re somehow even more reliant on Butler than ever before.
Updated for this year, it’s +2.0 rORTG with him and -4.8 without him.
That’s where the Heat season hinges. Will they force Butler to play better even if it means costing him more energy and being overused later in the year or can he save himself to play better in the playoffs? I’d still bet it’s more on the latter. I’d rather hope for that kind of season than the one we had in 2021
To wrap up, I don’t think we’re at the point of Butler’s career where he’s fallen off and he will drop even further. But I also don’t think we’re gonna see a significant bounce back as we did in 2023. It might be similar to what we’ve seen this year with the hope that he can again flip the switch in the playoffs. That’s where everything will come out. There probably won’t be anything throughout the season that will change how I feel about Butler(barring some outlier exceptions). He will likely coast as he always done because he is older and has dealt with injuries. So, we’ll back to the square one where we’re hoping that will mean he can be better in the playoffs.