An NBA trade is often about a team’s need, but one of this season’s bigger deals was mutual: Jimmy Butler and the Golden State Warriors were both desperate for another chance at glory.
Following months of speculation, the Golden State Warriors finally landed another star to pair with Stephen Curry.
The Warriors acquired Jimmy Butler from the Miami Heat, then quickly agreed with him on a two-year, $121 million extension, according to ESPN.
Golden State will have to send several staff members to pick Butler up from the airport because he comes to San Francisco with a whole lot of baggage. He demanded a trade for at least the second time in his NBA career, has been suspended multiple times this season by the Heat and is a 35-year-old averaging his lowest point per game total in over a decade.
But beggars can’t be choosers, and the Warriors didn’t have the ammo to acquire a superstar who wasn’t a distressed asset at this time, nor did they have the luxury of waiting around to do something while Curry is in the twilight of his stardom. This is a marriage of convenience, and it’s sensible.
Is Jimmy Butler Still a Star?
The off-the-court drama has gotten most of the play when it comes to Butler, and it has overshadowed his actual play and standing in the league.
Butler is averaging only 17 points per game, but that has come as the result of shooting less than ever, not a reduction in efficiency. In fact, he’s averaging the best effective field goal percentage and the second-best true shooting percentage of his career.
He also brings a lot more to the table than his scoring average. He’s always been a player that is better than his raw numbers would indicate. DRIP, our all-in-one player rating metric, still ranks Butler as a top-five player in the league among players who have played at least 500 minutes this season.
The reason Butler has always been underrated offensively is because one of his more important skills is what he doesn’t do. Among the high-volume players, Butler has always been one of the least turnover-prone. Last season, he had the third-least turnovers per game for a player who averaged at least 20 points an outing.
He offers some playmaking, too, so it will be interesting to see if he can move the ball quickly enough in the Warriors’ system because he’s used to using his physicality to draw help and passing out of that advantage. On his new team, he’ll be asked to make more decisions when the advantage has already been created before the defense recovers. It’s a different type of passing and not a system all players can acclimate to, but Butler is probably a quick-enough processor to handle the new scheme.
Declining but Useful Defender
Defensively, Butler is still good, although he’s definitely slipped from past seasons and isn’t one of the premier stoppers in the league anymore.
It’s frequently been said Brad Pitt is a character actor trapped in a movie star’s body. You could say Jimmy Butler is a role player trapped in a star’s body. There aren’t many stars as willing to sacrifice their bodies as much as Butler does on a nightly basis when he’s engaged.
All of that body-sacrificing has taken a toll. Butler is 35 and he has plenty of wear and tear on his body due to his style of play and the fact Tom Thibodeau, who coached him in Chicago and Minnesota, thought Butler was a robot incapable of fatigue.
Butler averaged 37.6 minutes per game for a five-year stretch from 2013-14 to 2017-18. Damian Lillard is leading the league in minutes per game this season at 36.3 and Butler played over a minute per game more than that for five years. Yes, that will take a toll.
With the accelerated aging, Butler’s defensive impact is less consistent than it used to be. He’s still a very good defender who is capable of turning it on for a few possessions at a time – think LeBron James a few years ago. And Butler will once again have the luxury of an impactful, versatile defender whom he can rely on as he goes from Bam Adebayo to Draymond Green.
Defensive-DRIP rates Butler as the league’s 47th-best defender with 500 or more minutes this season. That may not seem high, but it’s a really good number for a player who is in the upper echelon of offensive players.
Most players who have a high volume offensively don’t have enough energy to impact the game enough on defense to rank highly in advanced metrics. Of the 14 players with at least 3.0 Offensive-DRIP, only Nikola Jokic and Butler have at least 1.0 D-DRIP. When he’s healthy, Butler’s two-way impact remains at a star level.
The Last Stand
The Warriors seemed to exhaust all options when looking for a star addition. They landed on a player in Butler who is talented but comes with some fit issues, and the biggest of those is obvious.
Golden State fit in some low-volume shooting players during its dynasty because of the gravity of Klay Thompson and Curry. Buddy Hield is one of the better shooters in the league, but he’s not prime Klay Thompson. Still, the Warriors are third in the league in 3-point attempts and 13th in 3-point percentage. They take a high volume of 3s and make them at an above-average clip.
That’s decidedly not Butler’s game. Andrew Wiggins, who was sent out in the Butler deal, rebounded after a poor shooting season last year and is shooting 37.9% on 5.8 3-pointers per game. Butler isn’t going to get close to that number.
The Warriors have hesitated to play Jonathan Kuminga and Green together with a traditional big because the lack of shooting on the floor is too much to overcome. With Butler in the fold, can the Warriors play Kuminga, Green and Butler together for long stretches?
Golden State has played well with Kuminga and Green surrounded by shooters. When the two share the floor this season, the team has a +8.6 net rating. So, if the team plays two of Kuminga, Green and Butler together at all times, they can make it work with Curry’s whirling brilliance and a bunch of moving parts and high IQ passers.
But the Warriors might be in the awkward position of having to reduce Kuminga’s minutes. He’s expressed unhappiness in his playing minutes in the past and possibly thought he was being traded to the Phoenix Suns, according to ESPN’s Brian Windhorst. It’ll be a tough situation, but the on-court fit might necessitate it.
With Butler, the Warriors are clearly a better team but still need so much to go right to be capable of making a long playoff run in the next few seasons. And with some questions about the shooting fit and Butler’s potential decline, it’s fair to ask if this trade was worth it for the Warriors.
The answer to that probably depends on what you think the Warriors owe their franchise superstar. Curry’s decline has been noticeable this season, but he’s still an elite player. That likely won’t be the case for that much longer. And Butler was likely to be the best player they could acquire, even if he’s a roll of the dice.
In the end, Butler and the Warriors were a good match – a prideful player and a prideful team trying to stave off Father Time for one last run to glory. After acquiring Jimmy Butler, the Warriors still face long odds over the next few seasons.
But by not acquiring him, the team wouldn’t have even had a seat at the table.
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