Jimmy Butler has been one of the best players in the NBA for a couple of seasons now. Even though he doesn’t get the same recognition as others, Jimmy gets the job done, always helping his teams to at least make the playoffs every season.
After two tumultuous stints in Minnesota and Philadelphia, he apparently found his place in the world in Miami, playing in the NBA Finals the first season, being eliminated in the first round in the second campaign and then making it to the Eastern Conference Finals.
With all these good performances, one would think that Butler might be considered a top 10 player in the league, but that’s the complete opposite of what’s happening. ESPN released another part of their top 100 players for the upcoming season, placing Butler at 17.
NBA Fans Blast James Harden, Karl-Anthony Towns And Trae Young’s Positions On Recent ESPN List
NBA fans are constantly talking about these lists on social media and forums, and this time wasn’t the exception. After Redditor “Brady331” shared the list, everybody had a lot to say.
No. 25: Anthony Edwards
No. 24: Donovan Mitchell
No. 23: Bam Adebayo
No. 22: Jaylen Brown
No. 21: Chris Paul
No. 20: Anthony Davis
No. 19: Bradley Beal
No. 18: Rudy Gobert
No. 17: Jimmy Butler
No. 16: Trae Young
No. 15: Paul George
No. 14: Damian Lillard
No. 13: Karl-Anthony Towns
No. 12: Kawhi Leonard
No. 11: James Harden
Besides the fact that Butler couldn’t make it to the top 10 this season, they took offense by the fact that James Harden, Karl-Anthony Towns and Trae Young are all ranked higher than Jimmy.
So outside of the usual 7 superstars (Giannis, Steph, KD, LeBron, Embiid, Luka, Jokic in no order), it’s Tatum, Morant and Booker cracking the top 10.
If any of these guys get inside the top 7 this sub is gonna erupt lol.
Also how is KAT over Butler justified at this point? Weird list all around.
Trae Young over Jimmy is even worse given they just went head to head in the playoffs and Jimmy destroyed him. Same for Harden.
I don’t even understand PG over Butler. Jimmy has been better for a few years now.
Butler is so underrated its insane. Over the past 3 years has consistently been top 5 in analytics and brought his team to the finals and game 7 ECF in that span as well
Putting him outside the top 10 after this year’s carry job is just pure disrespect.
Agreed, and has had a handful of MONSTER performances in do or die playoff series. I would consider myself a KAT supporter, because I do think he brings a rare skillset to the table. But anyone who watched last year’s playoffs, and thinks KAT is better than Jimmy Butler, is out of their minds.
It’s because Butler doesn’t put up good numbers. He just flat out wins and people hold that against him.
Yeah I get that he’s not putting up 30ppg but I thought the ESPN “analysts” would be better than looking at pure counting stats. Over the last 3 seasons Jimmy has been top 10 every single year in RAPTOR +/-, BPM, and ws/48, being as high as 3rd in those rankings.
Jimmy Butler is “that guy”. #16 is ridiculous. He is clearly the best player on one of the Top 4 teams last year.
Not really, recently he’s had two fantastic runs, one where he was arguably the best player of the playoffs until he got eliminated and another where he put a couple of literal historic games in the finals.
He had a bad series against an unstoppable Bucks team and people act like that is enough to take him out from the top 10 conversation
He’s more consistent then most stars outside Lebron, Steph and Jokic and probably Embiid. Tatum this post season had more awful games then jimmy did as did Harden and CP3. If Jimmy’s inconsistent and that’s a knock what the hell is Chris Paul.
How is kat higher than butler?
My guess based on the list so far is it’s due to a combo of 1.) predicted improvement for KAT with the roster changes and/or predicted regression for Butler along with 2.) valuing availability and durability.
Harden over Trae and Jimmy in 2022-23 is a pretty insane take
Jimmy and Kawhi deserve top 10, while Morant and Booker don’t.
These lists always bring controversy to the table, and fans are always ready to engage in heated discussions to defend their favorite players. In this case, the majority of fans agreed that Butler deserved to be in the top 10 this year, but ESPN’s analysts had different plans.
Seeing how the disrespect fuels Butler, it won’t be a surprise if he starts the season being extra competitive, especially when he faces Harden and Young, two players he easily beat last season.
