Getty Miami Heat star Jimmy Butler speaks to an official during a game against the Boston Celtics.
It’s hardly a hot take to say that things did not go well for the Miami Heat on Thursday. The team had one of its worst offensive performances in recent memory against the Boston Celtics, putting up just 78 points and losing the contest by 17 points at home. And to add injury to insult, point guard Kyle Lowry hurt his ankle.
All of that notwithstanding, Miami has been on a major roll this season, winning six of its first eight games. While the reasons for the hot start are numerous, Jimmy Butler continues to be the clear standard-bearer for the club.
The five-time All-Star has played some of his best ball in years to tip off the 2021-22 season. Through eight games, Butler has put up 24.4 points, 6.5 rebounds, 5.1 assists and 2.6 steals per contest.
He has also connected on 50.4% of his field-goal attempts, a mark that has been boosted by his 78.4% efficacy rate within three feet of the hoop.
Butler has been so good, in fact, that people on the basketball blogosphere are starting to recognize him as a dark horse pick for one of the NBA‘s most prestigious year-end awards.
B/R: Butler Is an MVP Sleeper Bet
In a piece attempting to identify sleeper bets for all of the Association’s major individual awards, Bleacher Report’s Dan Favale dropped Butler’s name as the one to drop your ducats on for the Most Valuable Player award. Per the write-up, Butler’s current MVP odds are +4900.
If you’re a Heat fan with a spiteful nature, you’ll appreciate Favale’s finger-wagging at those who dumped on Butler’s big offseason contract extension, which goes for four years and $184 million.
“The reaction to Jimmy Butler’s offseason extension was overwhelmingly, uncomfortably pro-billionaire-proprietor,” he wrote. “Equally cringey: There’s a tendency to forget that player production doesn’t fall off a cliff immediately after they sign a deal that’s not met with the universal stamp of approval.”
Favale went on to note that Butler had what might have been his best individual campaign last year after the shortest offseason in the history of pro sports.
“Ticketing him for regression, even at age 32, was irrational and the likely result of placing too much stock in a first-round playoff letdown readily explained away by exhaustion,” he added.
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Butler Has Balled Out In Spite of New Ball & Foul Rules
The B/R feature made a compelling argument for Butler’s inclusion in the MVP conversation. However, the best point that was made is this — in a year where offense is down around the league due to an officiating shift and a new ball that a lot of people hate, Butler has actually played better than he did during a standout 2020-21:
Adjusted officiating has significantly impacted neither his rim pressure nor free-throw frequency. He has always been more of an organic brute force than Off-off-Broadway actor. His table-setting has hovered around this level or better for the past half-decade and isn’t particularly complex. He drops off and kicks out to shooters, makes good decisions out of double-teams, maintains his dribble and spots defensive breakdowns away from the ball as acutely as any point guard.
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