There are three traditional and frankly better ways to evaluate a guy's ability to score.

1. PPG.

2. Points per shot attempt.

3 Points per minute.

Before there was "analytics" there was this. When you look at it from this vantage point Butler comes up small. Even your way he lacks.

Last season is the only season that he has been among the league leaders in scoring. I don't know if he cracks the top ten either.

This year it's easy to "see" (eye test) where the numbers declined. He is avg 4 less makes at the line than last season. Seeing as where you lack the basketball acumen to assess why this is occurring I will provide a simple explanation for you.

He is getting older. While you think he is trending upward his production is more likely to decline. Guys tend to stray further from the bucket as they get older. As the bumps]begin to take a toll guys begin relying more and more on their jumpshot. Butler is no different. He will have to become a better shooter in order to sustain his level of play.

It's obvious from watching him play that he isn't attacking as much this season.

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41.4% of Butler's FG attempts this season are within 10 feet, which is the third highest percentage of his career. Furthermore, 61.3% of his shots are within 16 feet, which is the highest percentage of his career. He has not taken as many from 0-3 feet this year because he usually finds himself dishing to KAT for an easy dunk when the defenders collapse on him. And they collapse on him always, as they have to respect his ability as one of the best penetrators in the NBA. The Timberwolves have 3 prime NBA scoring threats and then guys like Teague and Crawford that all put up shots. I'm not going to care too much about pure PPG against guys like Lou Williams and Tyreke Evans...essentially the only scoring threats on their respective teams. Was Jalen Rose on the Bulls an amazing talent simply because he was the only one hoisting shots?

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Rick Hahn is the best GM in baseball.

His shot attempts are about the same. He isn't shooting as many free throws because he isn't attacking the rim as much. Aren't you the dude who tried the minimize the value of free throws 2 or 3 years ago. Wasn't that another one of your little nuggets?


If you are going to make the argument that a guy is a scorer then he has to actually you know, score don't you think?

20 points a game isn't elite scorer territory and Butler has only had one season where he avg more than 22 in a season.

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This needs to be mentioned again since you don't seem to have much if any concept of what it means to have an eyetest. Let me break it down for you. Last year Jimmy Butler drew 289 Shooting foul calls against the opposition. This year (more than a third of the season) he has drawn only 59. He isn't attacking the rim as much this season. You can see it during the games. It doesn't matter how many shots he is shooting from 61.3%. His scoring avg is down because he isn't getting to the line as much. That is what tends to happen with most players as they age.


You have continuously and rather fallaciously suggested that he is on the upswing. Its very well possible that last year was a career year for Butler.

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As usual, you are wrong.

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Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

At some point you will begin to be right about something. Don't know what but the law of averages favors it.

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I didn't realize that Embiid still doesn't play the second half of back to back games! There is no way in hell you're going to talk about the MPG of Jokic and others when Embiid can't even play in games when he is healthy. 36 minutes one night and 0 the next night is 18 MPG.

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Rick Hahn is the best GM in baseball.

And they couldn't play Jokic down the stretch tonight because his defense was so bad. There is no way he is in Embiid's class. OKC put in the pick and roll and attacked him the entire 4th quarter. No rim protection whatsoever. Watch the game and at some point be able to discuss it for a change.

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He just came back from an ankle injury. Start actually following the league so we can make these discussions easier on both of us.

_________________
Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

They were doing offense for defense switches with him. You'd know that if you bothered to watch the game. His defense stinks. Had nothing to do with his ankle. Knew you'd use that as an excuse. Becoming a habit.

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Good win for the Wolves. Fans were booing. Great game for Buckets. Terrible no call on Towns fouling Lillard late in the game.

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Butler got to the line 12 times. Watch out world. So much for his ancient 28 year old ass.

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Rick Hahn is the best GM in baseball.

Still avg a pedestrian 4 attempts per game for the year. Playing against a midget backcourt and the extremely slow Evan Turner. That is nothing special. You still have Jimmy Butler better than Kyrie Irving? time to start getting some of this utter stupidity on the record.

He played great but then he has always been a bit of a bum slayer. He tends to get body slammed by the elite small forwards in the league.


For the record. Carmelo Anthony 98% probability chance of being a Hall of Famer.

Mr. Buckets currently 7% probability of making it.

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Yes, I and almost everyone else has Butler better than Irving. Not sure why you think that would have changed?

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Rick Hahn is the best GM in baseball.

Since it is pretty much (board) consensus that he is better then this should be a slam dunk. I got a $100 dollars that Irving will be all NBA this year and Butler won't. How is that action for you?

If I'm wrong about either one of these you win the bet

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I'm not so sure. After all, both Irving and Butler have only ever made All NBA, Third Team once. If Irving is as good as you say, he should have more All NBA appearances than Butler, no? Or at least more than one? Pro sports awards are suspect. I feel that when hard data is available, you don't need to rely on a sportswriter election. Though I may take it. I'll decide soon.

Irving has the advantage of being the only scorer on the Celtics...only one with higher than 14 PPG. The Timberwolves have three primary scoring options (20 PPG, 20 PPG and 18 PPG) and Teague at 13.7 PPG. Selfish players like Irving have a slight advantage when it comes to awards. Kyrie is just a very poor man's Westbrook, after all.

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Rick Hahn is the best GM in baseball.

So Butler can only make All NBA if he is playing with the Bulls? It's not like the Wolves have multiple All Stars. If he is top ten then he makes All NBA. I was certain about Irving and it didn't matter whom he played with. Playing with Lebron is probably the single biggest reason that he only made one All NBA. There isn't anyone close to that on Minnesota's roster. I'm wondering who all of these people are that are holding him back.


If you think Irving is a poor man's Westbrook you really are clueless. There isn't much similar about their games.

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I wouldn't take that bet. Butler has been better than Irving the last several years, but Kyrie is having a career year so far and his teammates are better than Butler's and he's in a worse conference so he's easily gonna have the better team record, which significantly impacts votes like this.

There's still a lot of season left to play though. Butler's December numbers are awesome. It'll be interesting to see how the rest of the year plays out.

_________________
Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

Kyrie Irving is playing with two unproven players and a guy (Horford) that Boston fans wanted to run out of town last year. Kyrie IRving has always been better than Jimmy BUtler. It didn't take playing for Boston. When they played on the Olympic team that was thinking. When he made his first All Star team that was the thinking. It is the thinking right now. He will be in the Hall of Fame barring injury. If not for the injury which made him miss 2-3 months a few years back he'd be on his 6th All Star game in 7 Seven years right now.

He is simply better and has been since he entered the league.

Imu stated that very few believe me then stated that he wouldn't take the bet because a substantial number believed me.

Look at the analytics that you love so much. I'm sure he is being murdered there also. The weaker conf. Argument is one of the primary reasons Butler made the All Star game.


It doesn't matter which conf with All NBA either.

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If Minnesota finds their way into the top 4 in the West he'll make it because he'll get the credit for turning them around. Looks like his body is really starting to break down (I told you all it was happening) and that will likely make him less effective than he would be.

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Be well

GO BEARS!!!

They aren't going to make top 4 Nas. January will be their waterloo. I think they will be .500 at the end of the year and it will be time to cue up the fire Thibs thread (gaining traction among real Wolves fans as we speak) again.


I feel bad for guys like Bagels and JBills. They are truly Wolves fans and not simply Butler and Thibs apologists.

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I did. Kyrie is slightly ahead this year. Butler holds a commanding lead over him the last couple years and for their careers. As I said, Butler has been better recently. He got off to a poor start this season so Kyrie is slightly ahead stat wise(Kyrie is also having a damn good year himself, a career year).

It seems like you can't get straight which criteria you want to use. You change it daily depending on the argument. Is it All Star game appearances(Sorry but this is still a laughably stupid and primitive way to evaluate players). Is it All NBA teams?(Kyrie doesn't have an advantage there). Is it stats? Is it the eye test?

And yes, which conference you play in does affect how easy it is for you to make an All NBA team. Those teams take team record heavily into account, so if you are in a conference where it is easier to win games it's going to be easier to make an All NBA team.

_________________
Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

Uh... what? He's been one of the very best players in the NBA the last 10 games or so.

_________________
Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

I did say he hasn't played well. He's had leg issues and now he's having back issues.

_________________
Be well

GO BEARS!!!

I guess I don't see your point. Every player in the league plays through soreness. He's playing through it and playing at an extremely high level. If he was sitting out a lot of these games I would get what you are saying, but he doesn't look like he's breaking down at all. He's carrying the entire team in the month of December so far, sore back and all.

_________________
Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

LTG remember when you had Wiggins over Butler this year? Oops!

_________________
Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

So did Paul Pierce future Hall of Famer. Butler has made Wiggins worse. He tends to do that to guys. Completely had Mirotic all screwed up in retrospect.

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So did Paul Pierce future Hall of Famer. Butler has made Wiggins worse. He tends to do that to guys. Completely had Mirotic all screwed up in retrospect.

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Be well

GO BEARS!!!

The Wolves were 10-21 at this point last season and Butler is truly their only upgrade. I would call that a significant improvement.

Wiggins will be fine. In fact I believe he'll be better than Butler like Butler became better than Deng.

_________________
Be well

GO BEARS!!!