Miami Heat frontman, Jimmy Butler, hasn’t exactly been ‘lights out’ shooting the ball this year. Here’s why that isn’t something to worry about right now.
The Miami Heat were having a much better year than anyone could have imagined before the season was suspended. They were a top team in the Eastern Conference and in the entire league.
They managed to send two players to the All-Star game, Jimmy Butler and Bam Adebayo for the first time, while they also managed to get extremely productive years out of quite a few players on the roster. By all accounts, this year had and has been a success so far.
What hasn’t been as successful is Jimmy Butler when it comes to shooting his jump shot. While you would definitely prefer that all facets of his offense be at full brim, it isn’t that awfully bad. Here’s why.
When you look at Jimmy’s other numbers across the board, the most important ones are all relatively up. His rebounds per game are as high as they have ever been and his assists are up. To account for the lack of consistency in his outside game right now, his free throw attempts are at the highest of his career this year as well.
The Miami Heat’s resident star, Jimmy Butler, hasn’t exactly lit it up from deep this year. Here’s why it’s nothing major to worry about though.
While the purpose of having your jump shot go down is to score points, free up other players by creating space, and simply help your team win games, the other stuff that he’s doing at a higher level than ever before in his career more than accounts for that. Never being an extremely high volume three-point maker, he’s on average about one three-pointer made down this season.
When you look at the 1.5 rebounds and nearly three assists that he is up, based on his career averages, that more than accounts for the three points per game that he isn’t giving the team from distance. You also look at the fact that he is actively getting his team more involved assists wise, which accounts for the space he could create by being a bigger threat out there.
On the other side of it all, simply needing three-point makers, the Miami Heat aren’t hurting there either. They have arguably the best shooter in the game in Duncan Robinson, shooting 44.8 percent on nearly nine attempts per game.
You have Tyler Herro who shoots nearly 40 percent on almost five and a half attempts per contest. You have Goran Dragic who is shooting 37.7 percent on nearly six attempts per contest.
You even have Jae Crowder shooting nearly 40 percent from deep on almost seven attempts per contest. The Miami Heat have shooters and those aren’t even all of them that could have been named there.
So, while you would prefer Jimmy Butler to hit most of his shots, in general and especially those from the outside, he is doing his part. The shots are being made and so are the plays, as he is making sure of it, personally. That’s why Jimmy Butler’s poor shooting isn’t the worst thing in the world.