Miami Heat: Ranking Season Awards By Player & Likelihood Of Winning
By Noah Decker
Miami Heat: Ranking Season Awards By Player & Likelihood Of Winning
This year, Jimmy Butler has a pretty decent shot at winning MVP. He was already named the Eastern Conference Player of the Week and has ranked at the top of the MVP Award tracker.
5. Most Valuable Player- Jimmy Butler
If the season ended today, Jimmy Butler would be the league’s MVP. Let’s break down what he has to maintain in order to actually win the award.
First, the Heat have to finish near the top of the Eastern Conference. A popular definition of the NBA Most Valuable Player is “the best player on the best team.”
Butler definitely covers the best player part and for now, the Heat are in that 1-2 seed area. For the past 20 seasons, the MVP has been on a top-three team in their conference with the exception of Russell Westbrook, who averaged a triple-double while leading the league in scoring in 2017 to win the award.
Can the Heat maintain their spot at the top of the East? Who knows, anything is possible.
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One thing for certain is that the Miami Heat have been among the most competitive teams in the East thus far. They should finish at the top of the Eastern Conference, unless a major injury occurs or the Nets and 76ers get value in return for their inactive stars.
Butler would also have to maintain most of his statistical consistencies. Currently, he is putting up the best numbers in a Miami Heat jersey since LeBron James.
He is averaging 25 points, 6.9 rebounds, and 5.6 assists to go along with 2.9 steals per game. He is doing all this on 51.3 field goal, 33 percent three point, and 88.9 percent shooting splits.
During a long 82-game season, this level of scoring will be hard to maintain. However, Butler appears ready to remind the NBA why he is called “Jimmy G. Buckets” and play a bigger role in the scoring department.
With the complement of Kyle Lowry, he seems to be very comfortable with finding and making good shots.
Still, the NBA is stacked with superstars, so even though Butler is off to a great start, this is the most difficult award to earn in the NBA. Butler will be battling against all-time greats in order to take this one.
This year, especially, he could do it but it will be a big challenge.