12. Jimmy Butler, SF, Miami Heat – Outside shooting
The Miami Heat have constructed a truly nasty defensive team with which to do battle in the Eastern Conference. Bam Adebayo is a versatile big man who can defend in space, PJ Tucker will scrap with anyone and hold his own, and Kyle Lowry will either steal the ball or draw a charge on nearly every possession. Jimmy Butler, of course slots in as the elite wing defender.
The problem with the Heat’s likely closing lineup is that there is not a lot of spacing. Duncan Robinson is one of the league’s best shooters, able to hit off movement, and his movement around the court will help to pry open space. Even so, the Heat are looking to start three non-shooters in Adebayo, Tucker and Butler. The trio hit a total of 67 3-pointers all of last season.
It didn’t use to be this way for Butler, who shot 37.8 percent on three triples a game in 2014-15 with the Chicago Bullers. In Minnesota across just over one season he shot 35.5 percent. For some reason in Miami Butler’s distance shooting has disappeared, and the forward hit just 24.5 percent last season. The lone exception was the 2020 playoffs in the NBA Bubble when Butler hit 34.9 percent of his 3-pointers.
Butler likely will never get back to 37 percent, but even 34 or 35 percent would be significantly better than 24. Increasing the volume of his shots matters too, because Adebayo and Tucker aren’t going to ever be high-volume outside shooters. Butler needs to unlock some breathing room for this team. Hopefully he got some long shots up this summer.