Miami Heat: Jimmy Butler Has To Keep Getting Buckets
When you look at Jimmy’s figures this season from an individual perspective, a few things immediately stick out to you. His 25.3 points per game, again and though only through 10 games thus far, are the most he’s averaged in his career and his most in four seasons or so.
His next highest scoring average was in the 2016-17 season, where he was still a member of the Chicago Bulls and where his numbers finished at an average of 23.9 points per contest.
Interestingly enough, he’s taking an identical amount of shots as he did that year at 16.5 (16.4 thus far through 10 games in this one), while he is hitting them with a much greater efficiency ( 53 percent thus far to 45.5 percent in that season).
The difference there on why it was still so close, as his free throw numbers were also, almost identical, were his range shooting numbers. Though still nothing crazy that year, volume or efficiency wise, he was taking and making twice the amount of threes.
There are two things there though to keep in mind. He was taking three per game and making one in that season, while he is taking about 1.5 range shots per thus far and making about half of that.
The second thing is the fact that even with the low marks there so far, volume and conversion wise, he’s looking a lot better in this young season from range than he has over his entire Miami Heat tenure.
Again, his numbers there aren’t anything to write home about and he’ll never be Steph Curry. But, when you talk about a guy that’s shot 24.5 percent from range on 2.5 attempts during his Miami Heat tenure, you’ll take all the improvement you can get.