In his first season with the Minnesota Timberwolves, Jimmy Butler does exactly what he was called in for: he changes the culture of a permanent loser. Despite the good signs, the Wolves still have to prove their upward trend. They have a chance to do so in the duel against the rockets on Friday night (from 3.30 am on DAZN).
One might have thought that the Wolves had already made the leap from a young team with hope to a sovereign top team: Twelve victories from 15 games were won, the last five games with an average distance of 18.8 points were won, and even the spurs for third place in the West were overtaken in the meantime. Then came the guest appearance in Orlando, with one of the worst teams in the league.
“I’m glad we lost,”Jimmy Butler said after the Magic won on Tuesday at 108:102.”We need to get damn modest. We arrived here on our high horse and thought we were a really good team. We haven’t achieved anything yet. That was good for us.”
If there were any doubts before, this statement must have made it clear once and for all: Jimmy Buckets is exactly what the Wolves needed. As a player, but also as a leader who reads the Levites to the young talents. As a leader, if you will.
If you look at Butler’s naked numbers, they are good, but they don’t catch the eye: 21.6 points, 5.4 rebounds and 5.1 assists are all lower than in the previous season. But that’s easy to explain: At the beginning of the season, Butler was still very reserved and tried to get used to Karl-Anthony Towns and Andrew Wiggins.
Until the 10th. November he took 12.1 throws per game and scored only 14.7 points, which is why he was said to have a “slow” start. Although the Wolves already played successful basketball (7-3). But when he got used to it, Butler switched back to buckets mode – and like: In December alone, the Swingman played over 15 games with an average of 26.5 points without overdoing it.
That is again a very important point, because Butler gave the Wolves a killer instinct in the offense straight at the end of games almost on their own. Where Minnesota played regularly in the Crunchtime last season because of a lack of ideas apart from wiggins isos and towns three, they now have a more serious option with Butler – only LeBron James and Kyrie Irving have scored more clutch points than he has.
Minnesota has won 13 out of 24 games defined as Clutch, which is not unusual, but represents a dramatic improvement on last season’s 15-29 record. Butler doesn’t solve all Wolves’ problems either, but he hides a lot of them.
Of course, this does not only refer to the offense. Butler also sets the tone defensively and sometimes shows spectacular performances. In the blowout against the Cavs recently, for example, Butler told LeBron James that he was the boss and held the king at only ten points, as few as not since 2007. Overall, the Wolves are almost exactly ten points better in the defensive rating when Butler is on the court.
The overall defensive rating of 106.4 is still an average rating – Wolves are currently ranked 19th in the league. It should be noted, however, that the team has increased enormously since the start of the season: In October, the defensive rating was a miserable 113.3, and in January it has so far been a very good 101.2 opponent points per 100 ball possessions.
It is therefore heading in the right direction – and this has a lot to do with the fact that Butler is making progress and also gets loud when the younger team-mates (especially Towns and Wiggins) are defensively not up to speed yet again. This voice has been sorely missed in Minneapolis in recent years and with this in mind, his patron Tom Thibodeau has also called him.
Thibs was also enthusiastic about Butler,”He has changed everything here. He plays at an MVP level,”said the not usually euphoric head coach,”It’s incredible how he has changed a team that has lost so much over the past 13 years. Changing the culture here is extremely important to us.”
These 13 years relate to the Wolves Playoff Duration – since 2004, the MVP season of Kevin Garnett, there has been no more playoff basketball in Minnesota. No team is waiting any longer for participation in the postseason. Butler, on the other hand, has been in the playoffs five times in six NBA years and has completely different ambitions.
Accordingly, it annoyed him when Orlando’s behaviour was reversed and he counted his team as if they were on the verge of self-destruction. This may seem a bit exaggerated, but the Wolves are clearly on course for their home advantage in the first play-off round. But it showed very clearly how Butler interprets his role in Minnesota.
Its impact on the team cannot be adequately recorded with conventional boxscore statistics. The Advanced Metrics, on the other hand, paint a pretty clear picture: The Wolves are almost exactly 17 points better per 100 ball possessions when Butler is on the court. With it, its net rating (8.8) is a value that is only topped by the Warriors (12.1) across the league – without it (-8.1), the rating is lower than the worst overall rating of the current season (Lakers: -7.2).
Of course, other factors also play into such values – the Wolves have a really good starting five, but a bad bank, so the on/off difference is also negative for the other starters (except Jeff Teague). But nobody else’s difference is as dramatic as Butler’s.
One metric that tries to capture a player’s impact in terms of his fellow players is ESPN man Jeremias Engelmann’s Real Plus-Minus: here, Butler is only behind Stephen Curry and James Harden with an RPM of 5.47 in the current season. In the “RPM Wins”, i. e. the cumulative RPM of a player, Butler is currently even in first place.
In view of such figures, it can be explained that the first “Butler for MVP”calls are now emerging, even Thibodeau has already pronounced the three infamous letters. It should be noted, however, that although it can be mentioned in the conversation, it will not have much to do with the awarding of awards.
Butler does not come close to the absurd numbers of Harden or Giannis (or Westbrook), nor to the efficiency of LeBron, Durant or Curry – and Minnesota does not (yet) have the credibility to be included in the circle of contenders. There are still too many question marks behind the bank, the defense of towns and all facets of wiggins that do not concern scoring, to name just three examples.
Finally, the Wolves have indicated that they are on the right track. The next week could either confirm this – or lead ad absurdum. The next opponents are the Rockets, Clippers, Blazers and Warriors (all outside) as well as the Raptors in their home arena.
Of course you can’t talk about a week of fate in January, but it should give you some idea of what the Wolves are made of this season. After all, we already know that if anyone lets things slide again, Jimmy Butler will let him know. That’s what they got him for.