Minnesota Sports Forum

The addition of Butler and loss of LaVine has a lot of people, including me, worried about our 3 point shooting, which was already a weak point for us. This has led people to speculate (again) about moving Rubio in exchange for another PG like George Hill who shoots the ball from deep better. I really hate to lose Rubio because I love the guy, but we really need to stretch the floor so I could begrudgingly accept moving on from him and adding a guy like Hill at the point. That makes sense.

But do you know what might make even more sense?

Starting Jimmy Butler at the point.

Hear me out.

Jimmy Butler has the skills on both sides of the ball to play the point, and he has played the point for stretches in the past and been very successful at it. He can guard 1-4 basically, and he has the handles and passing to run the offense.

The recent precedent for this with Harden worked really well, and of course LeBron and Draymond more or less play point for long stretches as well, as did James Johnson last year, so we know this can work if the guy can handle it and if you've watched the Bulls in the last few years you know Butler can handle it.

Having Jimmy run the point will open up a wing spot at the 2 or 3 for another shooter. Now you can drop Rubio's 31% and add somebody shooting over 40% to the lineup to start with Butler, Wiggins, G, and Towns. If Rubio would be willing to come off the bench, I'd keep him because I think he's that good and you could pair him with shooters off the bench. If not, then trade him to fill out the bench.

Adding a starting SG or SF who shoots well from deep may be better than adding a PG who shoots well from deep. I think having a 3 point threat off the ball really opens up the floor for the ballhandler. I'd rather have Butler with the ball and a 40% shooter off the ball looking for the catch and shoot than have a PG looking to pass it to guys like Wiggins and Butler who aren't as good at 3 point shooting.

Moving Butler to the point allows us to consider a wider range of players (including SGs and SFs, as well as combo guards who could defend) than if we were only looking for a starting PG who can shoot from outside. So moving Butler to the point could make it should easier to find a player who can provide the best outside shooting.

Making this switch could also make us longer. We're already longer swapping out LaVine for Butler, but imagine also swapping out Rubio for Snell (6'7") or Ingles (6'8") or even Gallo (6'10").

Now, there are reasons you could say we should not totally freak out about our 3 point shooting. Jimmy shot almost 37% from 3 last year and has improved in this area over time, Wiggins improved significantly overall last year and showed he could hit 3s at a high rate at least for a half of the season, and even Rubio seemed to be able to hit 3s pretty well at the end of the season. If all those things continued next year and Rubio, Wiggins, and Butler are our starters, we might not be in such horrible shape with 3 point shooting, especially with Towns on the floor, an added emphasis on getting more open 3s, and maybe even G taking more corner 3s. But Rubio will likely revert toward the mean, I still don't really trust Wiggins' outside shot, and nobody can have enough 3 point shooting, so I'm freaking out.

Adding a PG with range to replace Rubio is one of the most logical solutions. But maybe the best solution is to just move Butler to the point and add the best 3 point shooter we can at any position who can guard one or two positions out of the 1, 2, or 3 and be able to handle the ball a bit. Joe Ingles anyone?

What say you?

They problem with this, a wing is a lot harder to find then a PG.

Drew, Well thought out thesis here, but I think it's a stretch.

Butler is no Harden or Ginobilli as a passer. Yes, he averaged a bit over 5 assists per game last year - a nice jump from the year prior - and he has indeed been a secondary ball handler for the past couple of years, but he does not have the handles or floor vision of a classic PG. Plus don't forget that we want him checking the opposing team's best wing in order to take some of the burden off Wiggins.

Now....what we CAN do is have him run point in end of game situations. Absolutely nothing wrong with this. Throw him out there with KAT, Wiggins, and a couple of shooters (that hopefully we snag in free agency!) and that is a very viable option.

Q12543 wrote:Drew, Well thought out thesis here, but I think it's a stretch.

Butler is no Harden or Ginobilli as a passer. Yes, he averaged a bit over 5 assists per game last year - a nice jump from the year prior - and he has indeed been a secondary ball handler for the past couple of years, but he does not have the handles or floor vision of a classic PG. Plus don't forget that we want him checking the opposing team's best wing in order to take some of the burden off Wiggins.

Now....what we CAN do is have him run point in end of game situations. Absolutely nothing wrong with this. Throw him out there with KAT, Wiggins, and a couple of shooters (that hopefully we snag in free agency!) and that is a very viable option.

Totally agree with your last paragraph. I wouldn't use Butler at the point all game, but definitely end of game situations, or situations where you want to get shooters on the floor.

TRKO wrote:

Q12543 wrote:Drew, Well thought out thesis here, but I think it's a stretch.

Butler is no Harden or Ginobilli as a passer. Yes, he averaged a bit over 5 assists per game last year - a nice jump from the year prior - and he has indeed been a secondary ball handler for the past couple of years, but he does not have the handles or floor vision of a classic PG. Plus don't forget that we want him checking the opposing team's best wing in order to take some of the burden off Wiggins.

Now....what we CAN do is have him run point in end of game situations. Absolutely nothing wrong with this. Throw him out there with KAT, Wiggins, and a couple of shooters (that hopefully we snag in free agency!) and that is a very viable option.

Totally agree with your last paragraph. I wouldn't use Butler at the point all game, but definitely end of game situations, or situations where you want to get shooters on the floor.

Yes. Butler can fill the role that Thibs tried to force-feed Wiggins -- running the team in crunch time. Unlike Wiggins, Butler is a very solid ball-handler and good passer. If Ricky picks up where he left off as a shooter and adds better 3-point shooting to his arsenal, then Ricky can be on the floor in crunch time. If not, then I'd like having a guy like Joe Ingles, Tony Snell, Darren Collison or Pattie Mills in there with Butler.

Q12543 wrote:Drew, Well thought out thesis here, but I think it's a stretch.

Butler is no Harden or Ginobilli as a passer. Yes, he averaged a bit over 5 assists per game last year - a nice jump from the year prior - and he has indeed been a secondary ball handler for the past couple of years, but he does not have the handles or floor vision of a classic PG. Plus don't forget that we want him checking the opposing team's best wing in order to take some of the burden off Wiggins.

Now....what we CAN do is have him run point in end of game situations. Absolutely nothing wrong with this. Throw him out there with KAT, Wiggins, and a couple of shooters (that hopefully we snag in free agency!) and that is a very viable option.

By writing that "Butler is no Harden or Ginobilli as a passer", do you mean that he is much less likely to throw a wild pass to stand than those guys? Butler had last season TO rate 9.3%, which is lower than Manu or Harden has ever averaged over season. His last season assist rate 24.8% is exactly same than Manu's career average and pretty close to what Harden had in his first season with Rockets. Butler's assist to TO ratio 2.62 was also better than either Manu or Harden has ever had. That number is also better than what point guards like Wall, Walker, Irving, Holiday, Lowry, Hill, Lillard, Dragic, Schroder, Westbrook or Curry had last season.

Even more impressive were his numbers after Rondo was replaced by MCW/Grant in starting lineup. In second half of the season (last 43 games) Butler was averaging 6.5 assists and just 2.1 TOs and in many games he was the main ball handler for Bulls in offense. I agree that it would be problematic if Butler would be main ball handler and would still defend opposite team's top wing. My solution would be still signing or trading for 3&D wing that would take main defensive responsibilities from Butler. Someone like Tony Snell or DeMar Carroll in case Toronto wants to get rid of him without any compensation. In last season games that I watched, it seemed that Snell was typically defending opponents top wing even tough Milwaukee had Greek Freak and Middleton on floor. I also hope that Butler's presence will eventually help Wiggins to improve dramatically his defense.

One thing that I learned from this year's playoffs was that you cannot have too many good wing defenders in your team. All top teams except Cleveland had multiple good/great wing defenders. (Golden State: Thompson, Durant, Iggy and Green. San Antonio: Leonard, Green and Simmons. Boston: Smart, Crowder, Bradley and Brown. Toronto: Tucker, Carroll and Powell. Utah: Hood, Hill and Ingles.)

If we could get 3&D wing, I would probably still start Rubio at point but I would use Butler as main ball handler with second unit and in the end of tight games.

Terrific thread idea, drew, and great additions by all. I'm a big Rubio fan, so I can't wait to see Ricky dishing out passes to the Big 3 (or even to Gorgui for his automatic 10 footer, or shoot the open three himself). But we all saw Thibs' propensity to use Wig as the offensive catalyst at the end of quarters (much to some of our disdain), and we have now gotten significantly better by replacing Wig with JB in this role.

Good stuff Mikkeman. If you dig deeper and look at things like points created off of assists and passes to assist ratio, Harden is the superior passer (and that includes the season before last when he was still mostly a 2). And I think "peak Ginobilli" was too. Harden creates just a ton of open looks for people because of his handles, ability to get to the rim, and floor vision. Houston's offense just crushed it last year because of him.

By the way, back in the old days, most teams had two perimeter players (usually the two guard positions) that were nearly interchangeable and it was expected that the "shooting guard" had point guard skills, i.e. could handle and pass the ball.

The good news is that this gives us another pick and roll ball handler, something Thibs was desperately trying to develop Wiggins into last season without much success.

Great post by Mikkeman and an excellent opening post by Drew! I've always thought it essential to have two ball-handlers who can facilitate the offense in the starting lineup. Butler, combined with Rubio, gives us just that. And he gives us that alpha who can run the offense in cruch time. I agree with Mikkeman that getting a 3/D wing for our rotation is critical. Snow and Ingles would be my two top targets. Carroll woudn't be a bad choice for that role.