Hoops Tonight - Top 25 Players in the NBA: The one metric that makes Jimmy Butler great

I also am gonna give a little bit of a breakdown of why I use specific shooting percentages and specific situations and give a little breakdown of what true shooting percentage means. You guys know the joke before we get started. Subscribe to the Volumes YouTube channel so you don't miss any more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter at

underscore Jason Lts. You guys don't miss anyhow announcements. And if for whatever reason you miss one of these videos and you can't get back over to YouTube to finish, don't forget you can find them where every you get your podcasts. Under Hoops Tonight, all right, let's talk some basketball so really quick on the Lucas stuff, I figured this was gonna happen no matter who I put at number ten. Uh, that entire fan base was gonna be pissed off. That was just the way this was gonna work. Again.

I encourage you, Luka Doncic fans or Dallas Mavericks fans to look at the people above him on this list, Like Steph one Finals MVP last year. You know, Uh, Jannis was considered the best player in the world by most people. Last year, Joki won Finals MVP. This year, Kevin Durant is Kevin freaking Durant. Everyone else deep playoff runs, you know, Lebron Western Conference Finals, Anthony Davis Western Conference Finals, Tatum Eastern Conference Finals, Jimmy Butler three wins away from

an NBA championship. Joel Embi just won the league MVP award. So any one of those guys gets put below Luca and those fan bases are gonna be pissed off, which is kind of the nature of these lists, And I get it. I try to tell you guys, like I view everyone on this list super close, particularly within these tiers, right, I look at one through three is all kind of really close to each other. I look at four through

twelve is really close to each other. And I look at thirteen through thirty nine with all my honorable mention, guys is really close to each other. To be honest, like I have Jimmy Butler at nine today, still don't know who I'm gonna put at number eight. I'm torn between two guys and I've literally gone back and forth on it a million times and I still don't know. And I'm gonna sleep on it one more time and we'll see how I feel tomorrow. But I see these

guys as all super close. Do I think Luka Doncic is capable of out playing anybody on the higher end of this list? Of course he's Luka Doncic. I know what he's capable of. But at the end of the day, like we play the games for a reason, I everything is. If we don't value winning, then everything is theoretical. And basketball is not theoretical. It's a game that you try to win. And so for the purpose of my list, I'm going to give the nod to winning in a

lot of these situations. And so with Luka don just having missed the playoffs, entirely in a field that has twenty of the thirty teams make the NBA Playoffs despite him playing in what sixty five games or whatever he played in this year, Like, I gave him the bottom spot on that list. That's just the way that I did it. I understand where you guys are coming from,

but don't take it. The tenth best player in the league in the year twenty twenty three is not the same as the tenth best player in the league in the year twenty thirteen. The league is utterly stacked with talent. I have Damian Lillard at fourteen in my list, and like all the guys above him, have good cases to be there. That's just the nature of how stacked this

league is. I do not dislike Luka Doncic. I tried to give you guys a full breakdown yesterday of all the different things that I feel about him, the things I like, the things that I'm not particularly a fan of. But at the end of the day, I'm certainly aware of how incredibly good he is at basketball, and quite frankly, I expect him to be much higher on the list next year, and you know what, we'll reward him for

that when we get to that point. On that note, let's move on with number nine on our list, Jimmy Butler season recap. He played in sixty four games this season. That's the most he's played in a single season since twenty nineteen. He averaged twenty three points per game, which

was the second highest mark of his career. He did average twenty four points per game in twenty seventeen with the Chicago Bulls, but he played about four additional minutes per game in that season, so on a per thirty six basis, Jimmy actually averaged twenty five points per game this year, which was the highest mark of his career, so per minute scoring, the highest volume scoring season of his career, and sixty four point seven percent true shooting,

which is the highest mark of his career and utterly off the charge good. That's like Steph Curry type of true shooting percentage performance from Jimmy Butler. So what I wanted to do is take a couple of minutes here to take a break from Jimmy and talk about true shooting percentage and what it means, because I've had several people ask about it, and you guys, see me always throw out all these stats on this show. You'll hear me throw out offensive rating, defensive rating. That's just points

per one hundred possession. All that is is the scoreboard waited for pace. You'll hear me throw out points per possession on play types. All that does is take every single pick and roll that Steph Curry runs and how many points they score. It's just a simple equation of when Steph Curry either shoots out of pick and roll or passes out of pick and roll, how many points do they score. It's a good way for me to

measure play types, right. But then we have field goal percentage, effective field goal percentage, and true shooting percentage, and all three of them I think surve a purpose. So I want to give a quick breakdown of what true shooting percentage means and why I use specific percentages in certain situations. So, first of all, true shooting percentage the actual equation. All it is is half of your total points divided by the number of true shooting attempts you had in that game.

Your true shooting attempts is just the number of field goals you attempted plus the number of free throws you attempted times zero point four to four. And the simplest way I could break that down to you is to say that true shooting percentage is just a field goal percentage that is waited for both threes and free throws. Because guess what, If I beat my man off the dribble and he hacks me on the arm as I go up for a layup and I miss the layup,

it doesn't count as a field goal attempt. But if I go to the line and I make both free throws, that is equally as valuable as if I drove to the basket made a left handed layup while not getting found right. So, true shooting percentage, in my opinion, is a very valuable stat first to actually factor in all the different ways that a player can score a basketball, right. So let's talk about each of the three percentages and

why I think each of them have value. So, first of all, true shooting percentage is just field goal percentage waited for threes and free throws. Effective field goal percentage is just field goal percentage weighted for threes, and field goal percentage is just your total number of field goal attempts in the percentage you made those specific field attempts regardless of type. Right, here's why I value each Why would I think of it this way? Why would a

field goal percentage matter? So if I went, you know, seven for twenty from the field, but I made seven threes, then I scored twenty one points on twenty shots, which is going to be a pretty good effective field goal percentage over fifty percent. Right, but I missed thirteen shots. A missed shot isn't just a failure to score the basketball. It's a rebound, often a long rebound on shots that

are lower percentage further away from the basket. Long rebounds give opportunities for defenses to attack and transition the other way, especially on corner three point shots or layups missed at the rim. Why because in those situations, the offensive player is all the way at the baseline in a disadvantageous

position to get back in transition defense. So field goal percentage has value in the sense that if you're a score that has a really low field goal percentage but a really high true shooting percentage, often there is a defensive price to be paid for all of those missshots. So field goal percentage has value in this discussion. Effective field goal percentage in my opinion is your is the best indicator of your ability to actually put the ball

in the basket. Right, So, in a scenario where you're not getting the benefit of a whistle, how good are you at actually putting the ball in the basket. It's the value of all field goals, but it only counts field goals, not free throws. I use this one particularly

on specific shot types. So, for instance, pull up jump shooting, there are a lot of pull up jump shooters that shoot really high percentages but don't ever take pull up threes, and so even though they shoot good percentages on pull up jump shots, their value on them is not great. Then there are a lot of guys like Steph Curry and Damian Lillard who take a ton of pull up threes, right, And those guys are gonna have lower field goal percentages on pull up jumps shots, but they're gonna have higher

effective field goal percentages. So on specific shot types, particularly pull up shooting, you're gonna you guys are gonna hear me say, effective field goal percentage a lot catch and shoots, and in pull up jump shooting situations, for example, Kevin Durant, Joel Embiid, and Shay Gil Just Alexander are all guys that take a ton of pull up twos but very rarely take pull up threes, so their field goal percentages are pretty high, but the the their effective field goal

percentage on the shot on those shots is relatively low. This is the best example I can give you. Steph Curry was only a forty four percent pull up jump shooter last year. Kevin Durant was a fifty five percent pull up jump shooter in Brooklyn last year. That's an eleven percent gap. But because Steph almost exclusively takes pull up threes, his effective field goal percentage on pull up jump shots was sixty one percent to just sixty percent for Kevin Durant. So that's kind of the value of

effective field goal percentage. You're gonna primarily hear me reference that one in relation to catch and shoot shooting and pull up jump shooting because there's a delinea between long twos and threes, right, true shooting percentage, in my opinion, is the best overall marker of efficiency for a score because it factors in all three and remember, getting to the foul line is immensely valuable to your basketball team.

Why the exact opposite of the concept we were talking about on missed shots mishots by transition opportunities for the opposing team. Right. So the goal is to get your defense set right, because when your defense is set, you've got an on ball defender, you've got the two guys one pass away playing in the passing lanes, and you have the two guys on the back line loaded up in the paint. That's your shell drill. Right. When your defense is set, it's very hard to score on you.

When you're not set and the help defenders are spaced out, locating their man in transition or simply not back, there are a lot bigger gaps for the offense to attack, or a lot of times people fail to pick up the ball and the guy will drive the length of the floor and get a good look for himself in one way or another. Right, So getting your defense set is vitally important. The best way to get your defense set.

Take a guess, is a dead ball situation, right, so out of bounds, time out and to the quarter, anything where the ball is being inbounded. Right. But what is the second best situation to set your defense. It's a free throw because in a free throw situation should you choose to, you could have four players back on defense. But even if you have two players in offensive rebound position, typically you're gonna put either a very gifted offensive rebounder or put your guards up there so they can pick

up ball pressure. You're gonna have three guys back or two guys back ready and in a position to set your defense quicker than usual. Right, and then the third best situation to set your defense is an actual made basket. Still opportunity to push the ball and transition in those situations, but in a made basket, they have to take the ball out of the net, get behind the baseline, and

then inbound it, so you buy yourself some time there. So, in my opinion, true shooting percentage, even though there's a downside to guys that are just purely foul grifters and the way that can affect your offense, overall, it's a beneficial thing for your team because if you get to the foul line, you get to set your defense, which makes it more likely for you to get a stop, which helps you get out and transition yourself. That you know, kind of chain reaction in a lot of cases can

be started by getting to the foul line. Not only that it disrupts the rhythm of the opponent's offense. They're trying to get into a groove and they can't because they're constantly fouling you and sending you to the foul line and standing around for ten to fifteen seconds at a time. Right, But there are a lot of guys in the NBA you put up great true shooting percentage numbers, but they struggle to do that in the playoffs. Right, this is not exactly super uncommon. This is the Tray

Young effect. This is the James Harden effect. Right? Why is that? Do you guys think? In my opinion, it's because if you have a great true shooting percentage, but a gap between your true shooting percentage and your actual shooting percentages, that implies, by the math, that you rely more on making long distance jump shots and by getting

to the foul line. If you have a smaller gap between your efficiency in true shooting percentage and your actual field goal percentages, that means that you don't rely as much on long distance jump shot result and getting to

the foul and getting a good whistle. Right, And so I think a lot of times you will see players that have those large gaps, really high true shooting percentages but low field goal percentages, You'll see them be much more prone to inconsistency in the playoffs because if they don't get a whistle on any given night, they suffer in the scoring. If they don't have their long distance jump shot going, they end up suffering in the scoring. The best example of this that I can give you,

guys is Lebron James and James Harden. I have a couple of crazy stats that I'm going to give you guys, just kind of break this down. So Lebron is considered the most consistent playoff performer of this era. In the regular season for his career, he's fifty one percent field goals, fifty five percent effective field goals, fifty eight percent true shooting. In the postseason, he's fifty percent field goals, fifty four percent effective field goal percentage, and fifty eight percent in

true shooting. He doesn't rely too much on getting to the fall line, and he doesn't rely too much on long distance shooting, and so the output, instead of being super up and down, is pretty consistent. Right. James Harden is considered the worst playoff performer of this era. He is a regular season career field goal percentage of forty four percent, effective field goal percentage of sixty three percent excuse me, fifty three percent, and a true shooting percentage

of sixty one percent. So the gap for Lebron between is his actual field goal percentage and his true shooting percentage is only seven percent. For James Harden it's seventeen percent. So he relies a great deal on the whistle and long distance shot result to get the scoring that he needs. As a result of that, he's really inconsistent. If his step back three isn't going, he could have a bad game. If he he doesn't get the whistle that he wants, he can have a bad game. Here's the final stat

I'm gonna read to you, guys. Lebron James has played in two hundred and eighty two career playoff games. In those two hundred and eighty two games, he has failed to score twenty points just thirty times. Thirty times in two hundred and eighty two games. That means he will have a bad game in terms of scoring output about one out of every ten times. In fact, even though he was in his twentieth season. This year, it happened to him just once this entire postseason. Old Lebron just

one time this postseason. And what was that seventeen games? One out of seventeen times. Even if we take James Harden's Oklahoma City years completely out of the equation, when he was coming off the bench in inconsistent minutes and he was super young, right, not the player that we think of James Harden as. Now, let's take those games out. Just looking at the Houston years, in the Brooklyn years and everything since, right in the Philly years, he's played

in one hundred and seventeen playoff games. James Harden has failed to score twenty points in thirty one of those one hundred and seventeen playoff games, more than a fourth of the time, more times than Lebron in about a third as many games. Think about how crazy that is.

James Harden, more than a fourth of the time, is gonna go out and not score twenty points in a playoff game, because if his step back three isn't going, and if he's not getting the whistle, that's where you're seeing the gap and the true shooting percentage and the field goal percentage manifest itself in the playoffs in inconsistency of result. And so that's why, like again, you're gonna see me use them in specific situations, but each one

of them has value. True shooting percentage, you're gonna see me use that for full seasons, particularly playoff runs and playoff series as well for scorers. And I'm gonna be really paying close attention to how that affects you in the postseason. Effective field goal percentage more jump shot result, long distance twos versus threes, right, so catch and shoots and pull up shooting situations. Field goal percentage, I'm gonna use that mostly on shot types. What's your field goal

percentage on hooks? What's your field goal percentage on floaters? What's your field goal percentage at the rim? What's your field goal percentage on specific like, oh, a fadeaway jump shot over your right shoulder, out of the post. You know, those are the situations where I find field goal percentage more useful. Also, as a team, field goal percentage is super value. How often as a team do you have an opportunity to set your defense? But they each have

specific value in these discussions. Again, it's not an exact science. To quote my friend Mark Titus, basketball is an art, not a science, and so this isn't perfection. Everyone's kind of got a different way of looking at it. I don't think an equation or a stat is ever going to perfectly encapsulated basketball player. But we do the best we can with the tools we have at our disposal, and hopefully that little ran will help you guys understand

how I look at things in the statistical realm. For shooting percentages, All right, let's get back to Jimmy Butler. So sixty four four point seven percent for shooting for a season. That is a truly great number, by far the best mark of his career. Solid shot creation season on a point per possession basis as well, one point zero four points per possession and pick and roll that's seventy first percentile one point one zero points per ISO on good volume. He actually qualified for our two hundred

and fifty ISO lists. So out of the twenty five players to run at least two hundred and fifty ISOs this season, Jimmy Butler ranked seventh in points per possession, above the likes of Luka Doncic, Kawhi Leonard, and Kevin Durant on that list. Also one point zero one points per post up, which is slightly above average. Shot making was also really good. Fifty six percent effective field goal percentage on catch and shoot jumpers, although super low volume,

kind of similar to Luca. Doesn't take a lot of catch and shoot threes, but he is super active in spot up situations. He likes to drive closeouts. Forty seven percent effective field goal percentage on pull up jump shots, mostly twos ton of mid range pull ups. His actual field goal percentage is just forty five percent, so very small gap there because he's not taking any threes, forty seven percent on floaters, fifty six percent on hooks, and sixty two percent at the rim. So as a shot maker,

he's one of the better guys in the league. Then he had this super interesting playoff run completely obliterated and embarrassed Gianna Santana Kumpo in the Milwaukee Bucks. He scored ninety eight points in the final two games of the series, including a ton of clutch shots. To give you an example, they're in all the clutch minutes of the series. Jimmy Butler scored twenty one points and the Bucks as a team scored twenty four points, so Jimmy almost by himself

outscored the Bucks in clutch situations in that series. He finished the series averaging thirty eight six and five on sixty percent from the field and forty four percent from three, which translates to a sixty five percent effective field goal percentage in sixty seven percent true shooting percentage for those

of you guys keeping track from earlier. By the way, not a huge true shooting gap because it didn't shoot well when he got to the foul line in that series, missed a lot of free throws, but really not a bad start to a playoff run. Ridiculous stat line. Two massive games almost completely like just completely dominate the series in clutch situations, and you did it to the number one overall seed, and you did it to the guy that most people considered the best player in the world

at the time. So again, Luka Doncic fans, when you're thinking about who you should put below Luca, just think about the things that the players above him accomplished in this particular season and how they would feel if the roles were reversed. Now, after that series, Jimmy Butler kind

of returned back to the normal Jimmy. He's kind of a guy that also relies on a lot of pull up jump shots and getting to the foul line, and so he has a tendency to misshot some nights and not get the calls some nights, and that can hurt his scoring, and so you saw that he this year. He's failed to score twenty in four of the final eighteen playoff games, kind of similar to what happened last year. Remember where he had two random single digit scoring games

in the Eastern Conference finals. The Heat in this postseason were undefeated when Jimmy scored thirty or more points. That was in five games, but they were two and four when he scored twenty one points or fewer. So that inconsistency did directly translate to the Heat losing some games as well. That also dropped his numbers after the Bucks series.

So in the final three rounds of the playoffs, he averaged twenty three point eight points per game, forty two percent from the field and thirty one percent from three. So that drop off and that inconsistency is the main reason why I had him down at nine on this list, despite being just three wins away from the NBA Championship. I but like, honestly, as I was staring closely at it, and again I was just just on the fence for

almost every single guy in this top ten. I'm still on the fence as we move on day by day. But I just think the guys above Jimmy on this list are better than him right now and had enough playoff success or winning success during the season to justify

having them there for the time being. But again, as it pertains to Luca, like, I just can't because even with all of that, even with the inconsistency, even with the somewhat average final three playoff rounds, he finished the playoff run averaging twenty seven, seven and six on fifty seven percent true shooting, and was the clear best player on a team that got three wins away from an NBA championship, knocked out the two best records in the league,

knocked out two guys above him on this list, Like, come on, man, how can I put him below Luca? How in my right mind can I watch him actually do that in games and put him below Luca? Again, if we just look at the skill sets, it's all theoretical.

We play the games to determine results, and for me, on my list, I'm always gonna reward guys who win basketball games, and I'm going to at least for the at least temporarily give guys lower spots on the list when they have seasons where the winning doesn't follow for one reason or another. Why does Jimmy Allway seem to go up a level in the postseason. I think this is a super interesting topic because every year when this happens, everyone freaking loses their mind and goes, oh my gosh,

it's playff Jimmy. It's playoff Jimmy. But it's super unique to me. But at the same time, it's explainable with basketball concepts. So I want to dive into that a little bit. I want to start on the defensive end here,

because I think it's the most important element. Jimmy's postseason numbers really aren't that impressive, right, Like, even as I had read those number twenty seven to seven and six, like, that's pretty on par with like what what Jamal Murray averaged in this playoff run, right, So, like, what is it statistically that's impressive? Nothing particularly right, But at the same time, he keeps winning these huge playoff games and series against guys that we've always thought were better than him.

So in the basketball game, not the box score. In the basketball game, Jimmy stays winning. And why do we think that is? I think we have to start with the defensive end of the floor. Jimmy is a defensive playmaker on the perimeter. He gets compared to Michael Jordan a lot, and I don't really see that much offensively, but I do see it on the defensive end of the floor. Michael Jordan was a super aggressive defensive playmaker on the perimeter that forced a ton of turnovers and

got out in transition. That is Jimmy's bread and butter. Whether it's poking the ball away from ball handlers in the dribble pocket to playing passing lanes, he is constantly jumping things, forcing turnovers and leading to easy baskets the other way. Here's another crazy stat for you. Since the twenty nineteen bubble, Jimmy Butler leads the entire NBA in playoff steals by a mile. He has one hundred and thirty eight steals in that span. Nobody else in the

league has even cracked one hundred. Take a guess. Who's number two. If you guessed Kawhi Leonard, you were correct. But in my opinion, he's arguably the best defensive playmaker in the league, which is why it was so genius to put him on Jlen Brown to break his confidence in Game seven of the Eastern Conference Finals. It's why him and bam at a We're by far the most effective duo guarding the Jamal Murray Nicole Jokic pick and

roll in or two man game in this postseason. Just Jimmy's ridiculous ability to chase over the top, which allowed Bam at A bio to stay home and battle with Jokic, and he pressured Jamal Murray into a lot of tough shots. In fact, four of the Nuggets' lowest scoring games in this postseason were against Miami, and I thought Jimmy and Bam were the key driving force behind that defensive success. I also thought that played a pretty significant role in

Miami's offense sputtering and Jimmy and BAM's offense sputtering. At times. I thought I had a lot to do with the amount of energy they were expending to slow down Denver successfully compared to their peers. Although in a loss. He was also super valuable in Miami's zone, playing in gaps and baiting the Celtics into making bad passes, enforcing turnovers. That defense development is a legit advantage that Jimmy has over his peers, and it's a big part of why

he keeps beating them in these big games. And that is a big part of why I have him as high on this list as I do. On the offensive end, it's all the usual stuff. He's an excellent athlete at his position, especially when it comes to strength, so he does not have trouble getting to his spots in the physical environment of the NBA playoffs. He is a versatile and creative scorer that very rarely does the same thing twice.

He's got variety. As you're guarding him, you don't go, oh, I know he's going to this move next, You're like, oh shit, what's he gonna do next? And that variety is a huge part of his success. He's a rim, pressuring forward that can make plays for his teammates. Everyone looks at Miami's shooting success is just random hot shooting, but a lot of it has to do with Jimmy setting up his teammates for great looks out of rim pressure.

He passed out of pick and roll ISO or post up situations to spot up shooters one hundred and twenty one times in this postseason run, and the Heat scored one hundred and fifty three points on those possessions. That is off the charge good. That is one point two six points per possession. That's worth almost as much as a Michael Porter junior catching shoot three when he's open like that is. That is ridiculous performance down the roster for the Byam Heat because of the playmaking ability of

Jimmy Butler. He is a super active off ball player. He scored one hundred and six points in this playoff run either cutting to the basket or spotting up on the perimeter, and he bolsters his numbers with easy baskets in dirty work. He had eighty points in transition during this playoff. He had thirty one points just on offensive rebound put backs and fouls in this postseason run. So you know, at the end of the day, Jimmy is

just a winning basketball player. It will never be properly displayed in box score numbers or in the awards that he wins, but it'll be resoundingly displayed in the simple fact that he's always playing in late May and June. He wins basketball games, which is the entire reason why we do this, and that is why I have him as the ninth best basketball player in the world. The volume