The Miami Heat’s leader’s impact, Jimmy Butler, is bigger than just counting stats.
Here’s the rub. There are many sports fans who will have a point, find a stat to back it up, throw it in your face, and move on.
That doesn’t mean they are right. Sometimes, the answer was flawed, based, simply, on the question.
The Problem Of One Stat
Is Jimmy Butler a top 30 scorer? Well, are you looking for a list of the 30 players who averaged the most points per game last season (Jimmy was 26th)?
Well, that’s easy. Yea, he is.
But, that isn’t a great question either. You see, that list will give you players who scored a lot but sometimes, context is just as important as the stat.
For example, there are nine guys on that list who didn’t even make the playoffs. They played on trash teams that allowed them to take a lot of shots (like Jeremi Grant or Karl-Anthony Towns) or teams that needed them to score a crazy amount of points just to stay in games (Steph Curry).
Of that 30, 21 shot less efficiently than Butler. On that list, 22 players averaged fewer assists.
Why is this important? Because maybe when I ask, “Who is a top 30 scorer?”, I’m not just asking for guys who can jack up enough shots to score 27 a night.
Maybe, I’m asking with the game on the line in the fourth quarter, who do I trust the most? Who creates the most offense?
What player can cause scoring to happen? That’s called context.