Chicago Bulls Need 'Most Improved' Jimmy Butler to Become Even Better
It's time to get greedy. As good as Chicago Bulls swingman Jimmy Butler has been this season—and make no mistake, he's been outstanding—he may not be finished evolving just yet.
That's right. The league's Most Improved Player just might improve some more. And that's an important, perhaps essential step in Chicago's march toward what would be its first title since 1997-98. With opposition like the Cleveland Cavaliers and Atlanta Hawks lurking out East, now is no time for complacency.
To be sure, the Bulls are stocked with talent. Derrick Rose has overcome injury and reemerged a still-formidable floor general. Pau Gasol and Joakim Noah have comprised one of the very best frontcourts in basketball.
Surely but not so slowly, Butler has become the team's best all-around player. His recent accolades acknowledge as much, even if Butler isn't quite ready to celebrate.
"If we don't get to four wins in this series, that award means nothing," he told reporters after being named Most Improved Player.
And that's an important start. Butler understands the bottom line. He's done enough to win a nifty award, but he'll have to do even more to beat teams like the Cavaliers.
How Far He's Come
Let's get the obvious out of the way. Butler had a standout season, and he's been even better in the playoffs. The 25-year-old averaged 20.0 points, 5.8 rebounds and 3.3 assists in 65 appearances with Chicago this season. Now averaging 41.5 minutes through eight postseason contests, he's upped his scoring to an even more impressive 23.4 points per game.
Butler's minutes didn't increase from the 38.7 he averaged a season ago, but his regular-season scoring rose 6.9 points per contest (from his 2013-14 mark of 13.1 points per game). In a nutshell, that's what made this season so compelling.
Butler's statistical brilliance wasn't merely the product of increased opportunity.
| Season | Games | Min | Pts | FG% | Reb | Ast | Stl |
| '11-12 | 42 | 8.5 | 2.6 | .405 | 1.3 | 0.3 | 0.3 |
| '12-13 | 82 | 26.0 | 8.6 | .467 | 4.0 | 1.4 | 1.0 |
| '13-14 | 67 | 38.7 | 13.1 | .397 | 4.9 | 2.6 | 1.9 |
| '14-15 | 65 | 38.7 | 20.0 | .462 | 5.8 | 3.3 | 1.8 |
Yahoo Sports' Eric Freeman notes that Butler's improved efficiency accounted for the steep rise in production:
"This award often goes to a player whose per-game scoring average increases simply because he plays more minutes, but Butler is an exception. The 25-year-old guard played exactly the same number of minutes per game in 2014-15 as he did last season (38.7, tops in the league this year) but increased his scoring average from 13.1 points per game to 20 points a night while also improving every single one of his shooting percentages—from 39.7 percent from the field last year to 46.2 percent, from 28.3 percent from beyond the arc to 37.8 percent, and from 76.9 percent at the free-throw line to 83.4 percent.
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Butler's contributions—and across-the-board improvement—were all the more noteworthy amid a pressure-packed contract season. Assuming Chicago tenders him a qualifying offer this summer, the fourth-year pro will become a restricted free agent. He didn't seem to notice this season.
Butler could have avoided the distraction had he accepted Chicago's extension offer, but he was confident he'd take the next step this season.
"It came down to me deciding that I want to bet on myself," Butler told Yahoo Sports' Adrian Wojnarowski back in October. "It was about me believing that I put the work in this summer to become a better player with the hope that my improvement will give the Bulls a better chance to win a championship."
On top of the basic numbers, the 6'7" shooting guard is now widely considered one of the league's premier two-way weapons. He's the Bulls' best perimeter defender and the preferred option for checking the opposing club's best scorer.
The defense wasn't news this season, however. It was his dramatically heightened responsibility on the offensive end that caught everyone's attention.
Per Basketball-Reference.com, Butler's usage rate increased from 16.8 to 21.6, and he became more of a playmaker in the process. The rise in scoring was in part evidence of that more assertive disposition, but so was Butler's ability to create for others.
His assist average increased from 2.6 per game to 3.3, and his assist percentage rose from 11.1 to 14.4 percent. Whereas Butler previously made his living catching and shooting (or driving), he's now looking to create opportunities for his teammates.
He's also remaining aggressive when it matters, most recently tallying nine of Chicago's final 15 points in a 99-92 Game 1 victory.
"He's been a big fourth-quarter player all year, and he's done it in the playoffs as well," head coach Tom Thibodeau told reporters after the contest. "It's who he is. He plays both sides of the ball, primary scorer. Not gonna run away from things."
But even Thibodeau was hesitant to declare Butler's final arrival.
"I don't want to put a lid on it," he added. "I don't know where he'll end up."
How Far He Has to Go
With great ability comes great responsibility—on both ends of the floor. That's a lesson Butler appears to be learning on the job, especially in a conference-semifinals series in which he's expected to at least partially slow four-time MVP LeBron James.
"He was aggressive, but I wasn't aggressive on defense," Butler told reporters after a 106-91 Game 2 loss. "It was easy for him. He got to the rim too easily. Lots of layups, reckless fouling, he did what he said he was going to do."
James went off for 33 points in the contest, and his Cavaliers' 106 points marked just the second time in these playoffs Chicago's defense allowed its opponent more than 100 points.
"We came out sluggish," Butler added. "We weren't guarding. We were trying to outscore them. We've been saying we can't do that all year. It's easily correctable, but we got to guard. It starts with me once again, like I always say. I'm the one that has to set the tone on defense, and I didn't do that tonight."
Let's not be too hard on Butler. Stopping LBJ isn't a particularly reasonable expectation. Nor can Butler be held entirely accountable for slowing an offense that scored 107.7 points per 100 possessions this season—the fourth-best mark in the league, according to NBA.com.
Still, there are some signs that Butler hasn't been quite as consistent on the defensive end this season. And there's room for him to further separate himself from the league's other elite 2-guards.
| Pts / 48 Min | FG % | Reb | Ast | Stl | |
| Butler | 24.8 | .462 | 5.8 | 3.3 | 1.75 |
| J. Harden | 35.7 | .440 | 5.7 | 7.0 | 1.90 |
| K. Thompson | 32.6 | .463 | 3.2 | 2.9 | 1.13 |
| D. Wade | 32.4 | .470 | 3.5 | 4.8 | 1.18 |
His defensive win shares dropped from 4.6 to 3.0, and his defensive box plus/minus similarly fell from 2.4 to 0.6. No one will complain about Butler's 1.8 steals per game, but defending goes far beyond pocket-picking.
The focus and effort may have waned with Butler's increased emphasis on the offensive end, and that's understandable. Doing things well requires energy, and there's only so much to go around—particularly for a guy consistently playing nearly 40 minutes per contest.
There may be something to be said for monitoring those minutes a bit more closely, but good luck trying to convince Thibodeau that his best player has been overly taxed.
In short, it may be asking a lot to expect maximum effort from Butler on both ends of the floor. But that's in part what differentiates him from the likes of James—the league's model two-way swingman.
The other part is passing. Butler has a long way to go before matching James' acuity on this front, but the Bulls need all the playmaking they can get. Rose only posted 4.9 assists per contest this season, and he could use some help—someone to set him up on occasion if nothing else.
In theory, Butler's ability to score in so many ways makes him a natural candidate to run Chicago's offense from time to time. Defenders already must respect his shooting and penetration.
Improved distribution would make Butler a complete threat, replete with the kind of diversified skill set that could put him in the running for even more prestigious awards—a repertoire that could well take his Bulls to another level, too.
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