Giannis Isn't Top Five. But Jimmy Is
The finale to Take Week
Welcome back for the finale of Take Week.
To wrap things up, we have two good ole’ fashioned High Fidelity top five takes from a pair of anonymous friends of The F5.
First, the case against Giannis Antetokounmpo as a top five player.
Then, the case for Jimmy Butler as a top five player.
- Owen Phillips
The Case Against Giannis
Giannis Antetokounmpo is not a top five NBA player. If Kevin Durant wore a size 18 shoe instead of a size 19, this would be widely accepted.
LeBron recently said Giannis would score 250 points a game in the 70s. Umm… have you watched the 70s? Every Giannis bucket would be called a travel or a charging foul (he’s led the league in both every season since 2018-19). He’s lucky to play in the pace and space era, when he can lower his shoulder and plow into his defender with a wide-open paint.
Giannis’s complete lack of anything resembling a bag makes him an extremely difficult player to build around, because he needs an elite offensive creator to carry him in crunch time. Indeed, in the Bucks’ 2021 championship run, Khris Middleton scored more clutch points than Giannis on a better True Shooting Percentage.
Furthermore, the former DPOY-winner doesn’t actually guard other teams’ superstars, so he must play alongside a great perimeter defender. He had that in Jrue Holiday.
Giannis also operates in the paint, but isn’t providing the impact of a traditional center on either end, so you have to pair him with a stretch five / rim protector combo, which don’t exactly grow on trees. Thankfully, the Bucks performed a minor miracle and transformed Brook Lopez into exactly that.
Even with this perfectly complementary supporting cast, Giannis was upset in the playoffs three different times during his peak:
2019 - Milwaukee was #1 in net rating, but Giannis struggled against Toronto’s wall in the Eastern Finals, shot 43% in the last four games, didn’t eclipse 25 points in any of them, and Milwaukee lost 4-2.
2020 - Milwaukee was #1 in net rating, but Giannis got locked up by Bam, averaged just 22 points, and Milwaukee lost 4-1 to Miami. The only game Milwaukee won was the one in which Giannis got hurt.
2023 - Milwaukee was the #1 seed and lost 4-1 to #8 Miami. Once again, the only game Milwaukee won was when Giannis didn’t play.
Did he salvage his resume with the 2021 title in a COVID-riddled year and the easiest Finals path in NBA history? Not in my mind. In the second round, Milwaukee played Brooklyn, Harden pulled his hamstring in Game 1, Kyrie hurt his ankle in Game 4, Blake Griffin was the Nets second leading scorer, and Giannis still needed overtime of Game 7 to beat a banged up Nets team because he wouldn’t guard Kevin Durant, who dropped 40 every game.
Then, in the Eastern Finals, Milwaukee struggled with perennially-.500 Atlanta until Giannis missed Games 5 and 6 and Milwaukee won both without him (notice a pattern?).
In the Finals, Giannis was defended by slow-footed Deandre Ayton because Phoenix didn’t have a single power forward on the roster, and Milwaukee barely won even with Giannis flukily hitting 17 for 19 from the line in Game 6.
Speaking of free throws, Shaq got so much criticism for his free throw shooting, but Giannis gets a pass?. He shot 74% from the line in his first six seasons, but only 66% in his last six. What happened? And in the playoffs, when it matters most, he shoots just 62%!
In the post-LeBron era of the East, Giannis has made it to just one Finals, while Butler and Tatum have each made two. Those results speak for themselves. Give me both of those guys over Giannis in any big playoff game, and I’d also clearly take Jokic, Shai and Luka as well. That’s an easy five.
Where does that leave Giannis? On the wrong side of 30 with a game that falls apart in the playoffs. Whoever trades for him this summer should know they’re getting a lemon whose signature moment of the last four seasons is refusing to call a historic upset a failure.
- Anonymous Dinosaur
The Case For Jimmy
When people talk about the best players in the NBA, Jimmy Butler’s name consistently gets overlooked in favor of sexier ones. I thought that after his playoff runs in Miami he’d get mentioned in the same conversation as players like Kevin Durant and Jayson Tatum. Instead, places like The Ringer think he’s in the same conversation as Paolo Banchero and Domantas Sabonis. That’s a huge mistake.
In case you need a reminder, here’s a rundown of Jimmy’s recent playoff achievements:
Two Finals appearances with teams riddled with undrafted players.
A 56-point playoff performance in 2024, tied for the 4th most in a playoff game ever.
A playoff run in 2022 where he led the league in Playoff Box Plus Minus and came within one shot of another Finals appearance.
Aside from Nikola Jokic, no player has been better in the postseason than Butler while having to carry a heavier load.
I probably don’t need to convince you of Jimmy’s defensive prowess. And offensively, we know he can score from anywhere. But let’s look at some less obvious ways he helps his teams win because it’s key to understanding why Jimmy has been one of the five best players in the NBA over the last five years.
When Jimmy is on the court, his teams generate a ton of turnovers while also limiting their own. Did you know he has more career steals than fouls? Only six active players can say the same. He also positively impacts his team’s ability to rebound and create second chances. Because he’s a perimeter player who does most of his damage near the rim, his teams gather a lot of offensive rebounds off of his missed shots. That combination makes Jimmy the best maximizer of possessions in the NBA.
No one is better at putting pressure on teams to defend without fouling than Jimmy Butler. He’s currently first in Free Throw Rate this season and has finished in the top five every season since 2019-201.
Helping his teams dominate the possession game and live at the free throw line is a big reason why Jimmy’s teams have always played better with him on the court. He’s never a had a season with a negative On-Off split. All he does is win.
I can already hear the response. “Yeah, Playoff Jimmy is great. If only he didn’t mail it in during the regular season.” Well, did you know that Jimmy has the 8th highest minutes-weighted average BPM from 2020 to 2024? Want something more sophisticated? xRAPM also has him ranked 8th over that stretch. Both metrics put him ahead of Durant, Tatum, and Anthony Edwards, three players the consensus consistently ranks ahead of him. If that’s mailing it in, then I may be understating my case.
Jimmy checks all of the boxes we look at when measuring a player’s greatness. Great stats? Yup. Steps up in the playoffs? No question. Clutch? Makes his teammates better? Is a two-way player? Yes, yes, and yes. There aren’t five players better than Jimmy Butler and I can’t wait for the playoffs so that everyone can learn this lesson again.
- Anonymous Otter
So what did we learn from Take Week?
I’ve had fun this week. If you feel the same (or different) let me know in comments. Maybe we’ll do it again in the future.
- Owen Phillips
Among players that logged 1,000 minutes in each season
Very enjoyable, I do want to say that Playoff Jimmy is a first round merchant. In the Nuggets Finals he didn’t score 30 a single time, vs the Lakers he did twice, in wins, and then scored 25 or less in all 4 losses.
In the 2020 ECF they won vs Boston, he didn’t crack 24 and had 3 games under 20
In 2022 he had a horrible games 3-5 (you can say injury or whatever but he went 7/32 in games 4 and 5, stop shooting if you’re hurt)
In Game 7, the Heat are down by 10 with 5 minutes left, he makes a nice layup to go down by 8, then Tatum makes a shot to go up by 10, Jaylen+Marcus free throws make it 13 with 3 and a half minutes left. Then:
Kyle Lowry 2
Max Strus dunk (off rebound)
Oladipo layup
Lowry layup (down by 5)
Strus 3
JIMMY BUTLER HERO SHOT FOR THREEEEEE *CLANK* to go 1/4 from 3
In 2023 in ECF he didn’t score 30 in the final 6 games, while shooting 21 or more times 3 of those games, and getting bailed out by a Jayson Tatum Sprained ankle from having the most embarrassing collapse in NBA history.
He’s also destroyed literally every team he’s ever been on, nose diving them for their final season, something a top 5 player doesn’t do.
This was a very enjoyable series!