Titanic to lead the Heat to the Conference Final, Jimmy Butler was certainly one of the best NBA players in the last Playoffs. A campaign that did not bring him much recognition as the new season approached. In effect, ESPN unveiled its Top 100 NBA players and Jimmy Buckets is only 17th.
Like every season, ESPN brings us his famous ranking of the best players in the League and like every season it is an excellent source of motivation for many players. ” So how is this guy better than me? Ok I’m going to put 40 on him tonight. » This is the kind of sentence a player can say to himself if he takes this ranking seriously and we know that a lot of guys are very interested in this kind of thing. Just see the complaints year following year on 2K ratings. Why would Butler be offended then? Because being the 17th best player in the League following the Playoffs he just left, it’s still hard to hear. We recall that Jimmy Buckets averaged 27.4 points, 7.4 rebounds, 4.6 assists and 2.1 steals in spring games, all at 50% shooting. Monstrous on both sides of the field, he carried all of Florida to the Conference Final, where he shone once more with the climax of this titanic match on the field of Boston during Game 6: a small 47/9/8/ 4 to silence a molten TD Garden. If we had to make a Top of the best players on the 2022 Playoffs? It would be complicated if not impossible to get Jimmy out of the Top 5.
So, obviously, the ranking ofESPN is not limited to recent performances but rather remains a projection for the coming year. Afterwards, if there were 16 players with big performances just in front of him, it would get along very well but the presence of some can be surprising. Let’s take a look!
- 17. Jimmy Butler
- 16. Trae Young
- 15. Paul George
- 14. Damian Lillard
- 13. Karl-Anthony Towns
- 12. Kawhi Leonard
- 11. James Harden
Trae Young ahead of Jimmy Butler? The same Ice Trae totally locked up by the… Heat in the first round of the Playoffs? James Harden? The same one who has been criticized for months for his irregular performances and who was also locked up by… the Heat? We can also be surprised to see Paul George, Kawhi Leonard and Damian Lillard, all broke by long injuries in recent months. We are not saying that these players are less strong than Butler be careful, there are MVP candidates on all sides when they are at 100% of their means but the dynamic of the moment is not necessarily very favorable to them compared to that of the Heat winger. We are talking regarding the franchise player of the best team in the East, a Conference finalist who has slammed monstrous performances recently. Obviously, some reporters went to meet the player to ask his opinion on the matter and he did not seem particularly shocked by this ranking. Modesty or irony, we let you judge:
Jimmy Butler’s reaction to ESPN ranking him 17th: « Word? That’s good. … I’m not worried regarding it. 17? That’s a good number for me. »
(via @5ReasonsSports)pic.twitter.com/SEuI8uCXXR
— Dime (@DimeUPROXX) September 28, 2022
Jimmy Butler only 17th best player in the League? It still seems a little low given the boy’s accomplishments in recent months. If Mister Buckets needed an extra dose of motivation to send heavy this season, here it is served.
