Miami Heat fans and haters alike have rolled out a topic that seems to get reworked for a different player each year and apparently, this year is Jimmy Butler’s turn. The thing called into question for Butler and plenty of players in the past is scoring.
Is he truly a top-level scoring threat? Is he one of the best 30 scorers in the league?
It is a solid clickbait topic. One side can look up his points per game and get made because they don’t think he is scoring enough.
Then they can look up his contract and get even more upset. The other side can say something vague like, “yeah, but he’s a leader on the team,” or “he’s the heart of the defense.”
These things are challenging to quantify or track with a stat. It allows both to become more entrenched in a side and dog a topic, without having an intelligent basketball conversation.
But that’s not what we are about here at AUCH. So let’s take a serious look at this topic and a more educated approach to deciphering stats.
Let’s start a basketball conversation because those are the best kind. Here… context is very important.