Miami Heat: Why Jimmy Butler diminishes the Kyle Lowry signing

The Miami Heat have landed the top player on their free-agent board as they have signed point guard Kyle Lowry.  Vince Goodwill of Yahoo Sports stated that the team has signed Lowry to a 3-year contract.

But did the Heat make the right decision signing Lowry to a free agent contract? Not necessarily, as point guards are predominantly used in the floor spacer role within the Heat offense. Miami runs an offensive system centered around dribble handoffs and pick and rolls.

They were 2nd in the league in dribble handoffs last regular season, averaging 8.3 per game. Duncan Robinson and Jimmy Butler accounted for 42.2 percent of the dribble handoffs as they averaged 3.5 per game. On the other hand, the team was 22nd in pick and rolls, averaging 36.9 per game. The team gave 36.9 percent of their possessions to Jimmy Butler as he averaged 6.6 pick and rolls per game.

The team’s offense plays a vital role in most of the roster, spending most of the minutes as floor spacers. For instance, Kendrick Nunn and Tyler Herro took over 42 percent of their shots from behind the arc last season, averaging 5.7 and 5.5, respectively.

At least 50 percent of those threes were catch and shoots as Nunn and Herro attempted 4.2 and 2.8 per game, respectively. Lowry has proven that he can thrive in the role of floor spacer throughout his career as he has converted 39.7 percent of his catch and shoots on 3.5 attempts since 2013. Catch and shoots accounted for half of his total threes as he shot 38.7 percent from behind the arc on 7 shots per game.

Let’s take a look at how the deficiencies of Miami Heat star Jimmy Butler lowers the importance of Kyle Lowry signing with the team

Although Lowry can thrive in the role of floor spacer, his salary is too big for that role. The team would have to give him a more prominent offensive role to justify his new contract. The easiest way to justify the contract is to accentuate other skills that Lowry possesses.

For instance, Lowry has excelled as a pick and roll ball handler since 2015, shooting 42.3 percent from the field on 4 attempts per game. The shooting percentage helped him average 5.3 points per game out of the pick and roll: 28.6 percent of his scoring output.

However, if the Miami Heat chose to accentuate Lowry’s strengths in the pick and roll, they would run into another problem. Their star, Jimmy Butler, struggles to thrive off the ball. Before 2019, Jimmy Butler shot 37.5 percent outside of the restricted area on 9.7 attempts. Unfortunately, at the beginning of 2019, he suffered a sprained right wrist, which led to a significant decline in his outside shooting.

After 2019, Jimmy Butler has shot 34.5 percent outside of the restricted area on 8.1 attempts: a 3.1 percent decline compared to before 2019. Consequently, opponents are going to leave Butler wide open when he is off the ball. Leaving Jimmy Butler open allows his defender to go help on Lowry, which increases the likelihood that Lowry will take a contested shot.

A potential solution to these problems would be to have Jimmy Butler move off the ball, i.e., cutting. However, Butler has only cut to the basket 6.5 percent of the time since 2015, averaging 1.3 cuts per game.

Therefore, the Heat would have to use Lowry as a floor spacer to get the most out of their offense since Butler is not a good player off the ball. Butler’s deficiencies suggest that the Miami Heat overpaid for Lowry because the only way they could use him to have long-term success is as a floor spacer.