Miami Heat: 3 goals for Jimmy Butler in the 2019-20 season

Get them numbers up

Continuing with Jimmy Butler’s 2017-18 campaign brings us to some numbers that we cannot ignore. The first being his usage rate. During that season he had a usage rate of 24.9 percent. Meaning that about 25 percent of the Minnesota Timberwolves’ possessions ended with him either shooting the ball, getting fouled, going to the free-throw line, or turning the ball over (which he only did about twice a game).

Note: this stat does not account for assists, a category in which he was second on his team with five per game.

During that all-star season, the league’s top-20 players in usage lived in a range between 36.1 (Harden) and 29.1 (Griffin) percent. I don’t want to live in a world where Butler is so alone on the court. Spoelstra will make sure he doesn’t get into the top 10, but I need him to at least crack the top 20, for him to live somewhere between where Dennis Schröder (13th) and Griffin is entirely realistic for a player of his caliber and drive, so that’s the goal.

Comparatively, 2018-19 saw Jimmy Butler’s usage rate take a dip, but that’s to be expected with the two All-Stars on the 76ers roster. But for a closer look at the season, he used 22.3 percent of the team’s possessions while seeing a dip in production. The top-20 usage rates more or less stayed the same with Harden skyrocketing to 40.5 percent and Durant bringing up the rear at 29 percent.

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There is a sweet spot between usage rate and points scored per game that I like to call the marksmen zone. For context, let’s look at the leading scorers from the playoff teams of the eastern conference. The only player on the list with a rating of three or lower (think golf. The closer a player is to zero, the better.) was Kawhi Leonard. He had no all-star running mate but instead had great pieces around him and led Toronto to a championship.

The only player with a score of four was league MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo. Sure he had an all-star running mate but if Butler wasn’t the third option on his team, would he have taken Khris Middleton‘s spot? The following players have a rating of five or larger: Joel Embiid (5), Kyrie Irving (6), Victor Oladipo (9), D’Angelo Russell (9), Nikola Vučević (7), and Blake Griffin (5).

Looking back at how the eastern conference playoffs shook out its safe to say that if your leading scorer has a rating of five or worse and no All-Star teammate or any sort of formidable help, you’re doomed.

Take Irving for instance. He’s a perennial all-star, but his behavior blew that locker room to smithereens. Irving dragged them to the second round, but they ran into league MVP Antetokounmpo where their season was ended quickly.

The Nets had a nice season and no locker room issues but unfortunately ran into the best starting five in the conference in Philadelphia, so a first-round exit was their fate. Although the Sixers team was stacked, they couldn’t avoid running into to eventual champion to the north in gut-wrenching fashion. That’s just what happens when your leading scorer and his All-Star sidekick both average five turnovers a game.

So yes Butler needs to get his usage rate up along with his scoring, but I don’t want his marksmen zone rating to be higher than four. I think it’s attainable but here are some players to think of if you’re wondering if he’s achieving this goal knowing the locker room should be good, the coaching will be good, and the roster will be taken care of.

In ascending order, it looks like this:

• Kevin Durant (3) with 26 points per game
  Kawhi Leonard (3) with 30 points per game
  Bradley Beal (2) with 26 points per game
  Paul George (1.5) with 28 points per game

If you’re interested in the full table that shows all players, use this link.

Realistically speaking, Miami Heat Nation knows he’s no two-time Finals MVP, but it’d be cool huh? Can Butler be in the defensive player of the year conversation while also dropping 30 points on a nightly basis? Probably not. I think I’d be more acceptable to want to see him jump to Beal’s ranking while keeping up his intensity on the defensive end.

In the vein of context, a dark scenario Heat nation needs to watch out for is production that looks more like Terrance Ross as opposed to any of the other star players mentioned above. Last season Ross was the fourth-leading scorer for the Orlando Magic throughout the regular season with 15 points per game. That’s not surprising to anyone since he’s seen as a hustle player with one of the streakiest shots the league has ever seen.

What people may not realize is that he was second on the team in usage at 24 percent. This is not the player the Heat and its fans have pushed all their chips in on. If Butler has a season like this where he’s not in the top two on the roster in scoring but is in the top two for usage, the season will be lost. Welcome back to games in late March that will drastically change their low playoff seeding or event worse, eliminate them from contention entirely.

While it’d be great to see him jump up to third in MVP voting while playing both sides of the ball and only having a marksmen zone rating of less than two, it’s not realistic for a player that was nowhere near that his past two seasons.

If the Miami Heat can pull off another trade this season to get another star down to South Beach, we can re-visit some of these goals and start setting our eyes to a deep playoff run. But for now, I think we have some realistic goals in place that we can track throughout the season.