Jimmy Butler has been playing like a max guy this season (both in usage and minutes).
| Year | MPG | Usage | PP36 | PER |
| 2012 | 8.5 | 14.9 | 10.9 | 12.5 |
| 2013 | 26 | 14.6 | 11.9 | 15.2 |
| 2014 | 38.7 | 16.8 | 12.2 | 13.5 |
| 2015 | 40.3 | 21.3 | 19 | 22.6 |
PP36 is points per 36 minutes on the floor.
Butler is near or at the top of the league leaders in minutes per game, and he’s taken those minutes and really dominated the offensive side of the ball. He’s assisting at a career high rate (16.1% AST%), and for the first time in his career, he’s above-average offensively. He’s always been stout defensively (and his defensive rebounding rate is trending up slightly), and it’s not a stretch to say he’s been the best player on the Bulls in 2014.
Fans are going to have to relearn what it means to be a max player in this new era, where the salary cap might climb 20 million or more in the next few years. Simply put, a max guy basically just has to be an All-Star at his position or even a shade below, and Jimmy Butler is one of the 5 or 6 best shooting guards in the league (and he’s getting better, not worse). I think Klay Thompson is an equivalent talent, and he just signed 4/$70 and it looks like a good deal for the Warriors. Butler and his agent were probably smart to call off negotiations. In any case, the Bulls will have matching rights to Butler in the 2015 offseason, and it’ll be interesting if he gets a max contract somewhere. I think he will.
I’m going to need someone to tell me how McDermott looked in his 10 minutes of play yesterday. His line looked ugly and he hasn’t really been able to put the ball in the basket (his only skill, really). Dunleavy has played very well this year, so given Thibs’ reluctance to play rookies and the fact that the gap between the two smalls is so large, it seems like McBuckets is really going to struggle to find any momentum at all in the early going. Injuries to Rose and Gasol finally forced Tom to play his bench in this game…just kidding, Gibson played 41 minutes and Butler played 45. The other 3 starters played 34-36 minutes as well. Part of it was the fact that Mirotic picked up 5 fouls in 18 minutes, and another part of it is McDermott’s ice-cold performance, but for Tony Snell not to get in this game (or Nazr Mohammed, for that matter) just seems wrong to me.
Of course, the Bulls outscored the Clippers by 17 in the 3rd, and were outscored by 1 in the other 3 quarters. Game tempo probably dictated leaving the starters in during the customary end of 3rd shift.
Perhaps the most encouraging stat so far is eFG%. The Bulls are 6th in the league in this stat after being dead last in the league last year. I expect some regression, but if the Bulls can even hang in the middle of that stat this year, they should be a threat to win the title.
Yesterday was a great win against a floundering Clippers team, but wins like this are great confidence boosters. Chicago gets 2 days off until they play Sacramento (another 10:30 PM ET game, so don’t expect me to watch), and I’d expect both Rose and Gasol to play in that one. This is going to be a fun season, ladies and gentlemen.
UPDATE: Handsome poster JonKneeV alerted me to the fact that NBC Sports is going to start streaming Bulls games on Comcast Sports Net and ATT Uverse for free, no matter where you live. I’m going to look into that, because if it’s true it’s awesome. It is a pain in the ass for me to get Bulls games (I live in Indianapolis, so it’s a local blackout), and this would be a tremendous step in the right direction. Look for more on this story soon.