Jimmy Butler or Klay Thompson?

[EBonz30]

I got into a discussion with my buddies about who is the better overall basketball player between Jimmy Butler & Klay Thompson. Before I get into my thoughts about the comparison, I would love to see what you guys think?

 

[superjohn]

I got into a discussion with my buddies about who is the better overall basketball player between Jimmy Butler & Klay Thompson. Before I get into my thoughts about the comparison, I would love to see what you guys think?

Klay Thompson and I don't think it's all that close.

 

[UconnU]

Klay Thompson. Even minus all the baggage that comes with Butler, Thompson is just a much better basketball player.

 

[Walker11]

Klay Thompson. Even minus all the baggage that comes with Butler, Thompson is just a much better basketball player.

I would so much rather have Klay. The baggage issue is real especially when considering Klay is the perfect teammate. People may argue Jimmy would be better for a crap team lacking a volume scorer but I think Klay would be better in that role too.

 

[djct1999]

Klay by a wide margin. In today's NBA, Klay Thompson is a coach's dream.

 

[Lefty2one]

It's close. I don't think there's a wrong answer here; it depends on how you weigh and value their situations. Same age, similar individual accolades--really the biggest difference is their situations. I hate to punish Klay for being in such an amazing situation but we've seen what Butler can do as "the guy" while we've never seen Klay in that role for an extended period. Butler was Philly's best player in the TOR series and carried his team for stretches. Klay is in the perfect situation for his game, where he can have those ridiculous nights where he scores 40 points on four total dribbles. The defense has been more worried about Steph his entire career, and more worried about Steph and KD the last three seasons.

Both are great two-way players. Klay is one of those rare guys who is, for whatever reason, free from any media scrutiny whatsoever. Reggie Miller and Hakeem are the only two other guys I can remember who got a free pass to a similar extent. You never hear about Klay's stinkers--and he has plenty of them--because it's Steph's team or KD's team.

I love Klay so I'd probably take him subjectively but I think it's very close. I think Butler's "baggage" is overrated. By all accounts, he's loved in Philly by his teammates and the staff.

On paper...
- Butler is five months older
- Both are x2 All-NBA
- x5 All-Star for Klay, x4 for Butler
- x4 All-D for Butler, x1 for Klay
- x3 Champion for Klay

 

[EBonz30]

Klay Thompson and I don't think it's all that close.

Yea, you & I are on the same page, can’t believe I had to argue with my bros....

 

[the Q]

Let’s take a look at the objective measures:

Butler vs klay

VORP: 26 to 11.3 advantage butler

BPM: 4.0 to 0.2 advantage butler

Win shares: 66.1 to 46.8 advantage butler

Butler does appear to be a world class . But he appears to be much better than Klay.

 

[Brochacho]

Put Klay on a mediocre team in the East and you get Harden numbers. Put Butler on a mediocre team and you get the 2017 Bulls.

 

[auror]

Put Klay on a mediocre team in the East and you get Harden numbers. Put Butler on a mediocre team and you get the 2017 Bulls.

Harden numbers? No. What? No. You're getting modern Reggie Miller numbers at absolute best.

This post confirms this at least:

 

[superjohn]

Jimmy Butler will be forgotten quickly when his playing career is over, Klay Thompson will go to the Hall of Fame and be considered one of the three best 3 point shooters ever.

Klay can go to any team and improve them dramatically right away because he has a skill "shooting" that he does better than almost anyone all-time. Butler's skillset (he needs the ball in his hands) is that of a #1 option but he's not nearly good enough to make you a contender as the #1 option, Klay Thompson would be a great #2 option pretty much anywhere and he's shown you can win it all with him as a #2 option. I don't think you're winning it all with Jimmy Butler as your #2. Outside possibility at the height of Lebron's powers but I don't see it anywhere else. This is all before you factor in Jimmy becoming a headache in recent years.

 

[Walker11]

Harden numbers? No. What? No. You're getting modern Reggie Miller numbers at absolute best.

This post confirms this at least:

This stat is as stupid as is the assertion that Klay would be Harden on a different team.

This stat is an example of why people incorrectly think analytics are stupid. No disrespect to you, just this post- you are always a good poster.

 

[uconnever]

Klay may be the better player, but I do believe he’s overrated. And he’s better but not by a whole lot.

 

[Seattle Guy]

Depends on the team.

 

[UofCT]

Klay may be the better player, but I do believe he’s overrated. And he’s better but not by a whole lot.

All I know is that when KD and Steph miss games together the Warriors tend to lose.

 

[Walker11]

All I know is that when KD and Steph miss games together the Warriors tend to lose.

Make sense that the Warriors aren't good when they have 70 million dollars on the bench. You have to consider roster construction and the complete lack of depth because of the money allocated to KD and SC. They aren't good when they miss SC alone. Is KD overrated?

 

[superjohn]

All I know is that when KD and Steph miss games together the Warriors tend to lose.

This is nonsensical. Of course they are going to struggle when their two best players are missing. They are obviously going to struggle if Klay and Draymond are missing together too. There is a record for these things...

The Warriors with Durant out of the lineup win over 90% of the time, with Curry out of the lineup only about 60% of the time and even worse with Thompson out of the lineup.

The Warriors have historically struggled to win without Klay Thompson

Klay Thompson is an integral part of the Warriors success and they have a losing record over the course of his career when he misses games.

warriorswire.usatoday.com

 

[auror]

This stat is as stupid as is the assertion that Klay would be Harden on a different team.

This stat is an example of why people incorrectly think analytics are stupid. No disrespect to you, just this post- you are always a good poster.

It's simplistic, but it's not stupid.

Klay essentially only does 1 thing: score. Efficiently, sure: he's an assassin. But the context of his team helps. He does nothing else. He doesn't create for others. He doesn't rebound. He doesn't block shots or force steals. His defense is good in the playoffs, but mediocre in the regular seasons the last few (4+) years.

He's literally never averaged over 3 assists a game in any season. In the free-flowing, ball movement-emphasized Warriors offense filled with insane finishers getting wide open looks, that's almost impossible. Iggy's done it all 6 years. Not even talking assist % or per 100 possessions, raw total assists per game in the crazy fast Warriors offense.

One year, he broke 3 FTs attempted per game (3.3). Out of 8 seasons. James Harden, seriously?

As such, he's a role player. A very good one. But he's a one-dimensional player most of the time.

That particular stat I linked shows that Jimmy Butler has contributed in many more facets of the game than Klay. It's essentially showing who is stuffing the stat sheet overall, and who is literally only stuffing it with points. Hey, points are the game, right? But it's pretty easy to get buckets when you're playing with 2 of the top 20 players of All Time, 1 of which has the craziest warping effect on a defense perhaps of all time, and 2 other good playmakers. Any decent scorer or shooter would thrive. The stat is BPM, so it's box score limited. Simplistic, as I said. But the advanced adjusted +/- stats back up that Thompson is overrated. PIPM rates him as having had 1 All-NBA caliber year and 0 other even All-Star caliber years. He's made 3 All-NBA and 5 All-Stars in actuality.

Of course, the natural rebuttal is that he'd do more when running his own team. It's his role that's the problem. He's playing with Steph and Draymond and Durant. Great playmakers. The coaches are just optimizing his skillset without letting him expand it to what it could be. But...


That's essentially a full season sample size, for the record.

This is nonsensical. Of course they are going to struggle when their two best players are missing. They are obviously going to struggle if Klay and Draymond are missing together too. There is a record for these things...

The Warriors with Durant out of the lineup win over 90% of the time, with Curry out of the lineup only about 60% of the time and even worse with Thompson out of the lineup.

The Warriors have historically struggled to win without Klay Thompson

Klay Thompson is an integral part of the Warriors success and they have a losing record over the course of his career when he misses games.

warriorswire.usatoday.com

This is pretty ironic. That 10-14 record without Klay stat includes 9 games from '17-'18 when both Klay and Steph were out. They went 3-6. Also, 1 in 2015 (loss) and 1 in 2017 (loss). So it's really 3-8 without Klay AND Steph, 7-6 without just Klay. Basically the same as the Curry missing number with a much smaller sample size with much more influence of road back to back restings against good teams

The 3,000 minute sample of him playing in games without Steph is much more telling..

Give me Butler, assuming our team is okay enough that he doesn't need to pull weird locker room . Then give me Klay. Also, just for the Warriors, give me Klay. He fits their other pieces slightly better.

 

[superjohn]

It's simplistic, but it's not stupid.

Klay essentially only does 1 thing: score. Efficiently, sure: he's an assassin. But the context of his team helps. He does nothing else. He doesn't create for others. He doesn't rebound. He doesn't block shots or force steals. His defense is good in the playoffs, but mediocre in the regular seasons the last few (4+) years.

He's literally never averaged over 3 assists a game in any season. In the free-flowing, ball movement-emphasized Warriors offense filled with insane finishers getting wide open looks, that's almost impossible. Iggy's done it all 6 years. Not even talking assist % or per 100 possessions, raw total assists per game in the crazy fast Warriors offense.

One year, he broke 3 FTs attempted per game (3.3). Out of 8 seasons. James Harden, seriously?

As such, he's a role player. A very good one. But he's a one-dimensional player most of the time.

That particular stat I linked shows that Jimmy Butler has contributed in many more facets of the game than Klay. It's essentially showing who is stuffing the stat sheet overall, and who is literally only stuffing it with points. It's BPM, so it's box score limited. Simplistic, as I said. But the advanced adjusted +/- stats back up that Thompson is overrated. PIPM rates him as having had 1 All-NBA caliber year and 0 other even All-Star caliber years.

Of course, the natural rebuttal is that he'd do more when running his own team. It's his role that's the problem. He's playing Steph and Draymond and Durant. Great playmakers. They're just optimizing his skillset without letting him expand it to what it could be. But...


That's essentially a full season sample size, for the record.



This is pretty ironic. That 10-14 record without Klay stat includes 9 games from '17-'18 when both Klay and Steph were out. They went 3-6. Also, 1 in 2015 (loss) and 1 in 2017 (loss). So it's really 3-8 without Klay AND Steph, 7-6 without just Klay. Basically the same as the Curry missing number with a much smaller sample size with much more influence of road back to back restings against good teams

The 3,000 minute sample of him playing in games without Steph is much more telling..

Give me Butler, assuming our team is okay enough that he doesn't need to pull weird locker room # 2. Then give me Klay. Also, just for the Warriors, give me Klay. He fits their other pieces slightly better.

Everyone knows it's Curry's team but Klay and Draymond are also incredibly important. As unstoppable as Durant is offensively he's the one they still win at a staggering clip without.

You can take Jimmy and you're most likely going nowhere. As I stated earlier he has the game of a #1 offensive option but if he's your #1 you basically suck. Klay's game fits everywhere.

Also the role player thing is obviously a function of what the team needs and he would get more assists and rebounds if he played anywhere else. Calling a top 3 all-time shooter, a guy who has gotten a bunch of the toughest defensive assignments, and has exploded offensively in some games like few in the history of the NBA have a role player is an intentional slight.

 

[auror]

Also the role player thing is obviously a function of what the team needs and he would get more assists and rebounds if he played anywhere else. Calling a top 3 all-time shooter, a guy who has gotten a bunch of the toughest defensive assignments, and has exploded offensively in some games like few in the history of the NBA have a role player is an intentional slight.

He's absolutely a scoring role player. His role is to score and to stretch the floor. And he does it well. And not much else. A scoring role player is more valuable than a rebounding role player, for sure.

But you plug Eric Gordon into that Warriors scoring role, how much worse are the Warriors? They are worse, and maybe lose that game 6 against OKC. But not much appreciably overall. What about JJ Redick? Do those guys make an All Star team if they had been drafted Klay's year in his place instead? I think there's a pretty good chance.

 

[superjohn]

He's absolutely a scoring role player. His role is to score and to stretch the floor. And he does it well. And not much else. A scoring role player is more valuable than a rebounding role player, for sure.

But you plug Eric Gordon into that Warriors scoring role, how much worse are the Warriors? They are worse, and maybe lose that game 6 against OKC. But not much appreciably overall. What about JJ Redick? Do those guys make an All Star team if they had been drafted Klay's year in his place instead? I think there's a pretty good chance.

Dude, you're normally pretty good here but this is a horrendous take. We're now going to pretend Klay Thompson is interchangeable with Eric Gordon and JJ Redick. Wow.

It's super late on the weekend, maybe just chalk this one up to the booze talking.

 

[EBonz30]

It's simplistic, but it's not stupid.

Klay essentially only does 1 thing: score. Efficiently, sure: he's an assassin. But the context of his team helps. He does nothing else. He doesn't create for others. He doesn't rebound. He doesn't block shots or force steals. His defense is good in the playoffs, but mediocre in the regular seasons the last few (4+) years.

He's literally never averaged over 3 assists a game in any season. In the free-flowing, ball movement-emphasized Warriors offense filled with insane finishers getting wide open looks, that's almost impossible. Iggy's done it all 6 years. Not even talking assist % or per 100 possessions, raw total assists per game in the crazy fast Warriors offense.

One year, he broke 3 FTs attempted per game (3.3). Out of 8 seasons. James Harden, seriously?

As such, he's a role player. A very good one. But he's a one-dimensional player most of the time.

That particular stat I linked shows that Jimmy Butler has contributed in many more facets of the game than Klay. It's essentially showing who is stuffing the stat sheet overall, and who is literally only stuffing it with points. Hey, points are the game, right? But it's pretty easy to get buckets when you're playing with 2 of the top 20 players of All Time, 1 of which has the craziest warping effect on a defense perhaps of all time, and 2 other good playmakers. Any decent scorer or shooter would thrive. The stat is BPM, so it's box score limited. Simplistic, as I said. But the advanced adjusted +/- stats back up that Thompson is overrated. PIPM rates him as having had 1 All-NBA caliber year and 0 other even All-Star caliber years. He's made 3 All-NBA and 5 All-Stars in actuality.

Of course, the natural rebuttal is that he'd do more when running his own team. It's his role that's the problem. He's playing with Steph and Draymond and Durant. Great playmakers. The coaches are just optimizing his skillset without letting him expand it to what it could be. But...


That's essentially a full season sample size, for the record.



This is pretty ironic. That 10-14 record without Klay stat includes 9 games from '17-'18 when both Klay and Steph were out. They went 3-6. Also, 1 in 2015 (loss) and 1 in 2017 (loss). So it's really 3-8 without Klay AND Steph, 7-6 without just Klay. Basically the same as the Curry missing number with a much smaller sample size with much more influence of road back to back restings against good teams

The 3,000 minute sample of him playing in games without Steph is much more telling..

Give me Butler, assuming our team is okay enough that he doesn't need to pull weird locker room # 2. Then give me Klay. Also, just for the Warriors, give me Klay. He fits their other pieces slightly better.

To say Klay only does one thing is just completely wrong.

Klay creates space on the floor for everyone else just because of his ability to shoot the basketball, which has never been more prevalent than in today’s NBA, it’s obviously a super important aspect which in this thread is being overlooked.

Then, Klay’s defense & his ability to take great offensive players totally out of games & series is more important than you might think, just go ask Damian Lillard......

 

[EBonz30]

Let’s talk reality, we might all think we can be a general manager in the NBA & we might be even smarter than some when it comes to picking players & creating a roster, but I believe if you ask this same question to the 30 general managers around the league & add the question who would you rather start a team with that is a blank canvas I would be confident to say more than 25 general managers would pick Klay, if not all 30.

You can talk about analytics, which is great, remember they also say Harden is one of the greatest offensive players ever, remember the regular season is long & players take nights off & a lot of the times are not giving 100 percent effort.

The NBA is a playoff sport. The playoffs are where you see more of an accurate idea of who these players are, why did I pick the Raptors coming out of the east before the playoffs started was simple I believed Leonard was the best player in the conference, was he in the regular season, no, but again it’s long and boring & typically not an accurate depiction of who these players are.

Same thing happened 5 years ago when people were saying Curry was better then LeBron, then we all watched the playoffs & the narrative got completely flipped & we (I never bought that idea) looked silly.

Klay might be an average defender during the regular, but just like most players he shows who he truly is as a player when it counts....

 

[auror]

Let’s talk reality, we might all think we can be a general manager in the NBA & we might be even smarter than some when it comes to picking players & creating a roster, but I believe if you ask this same question to the 30 general managers around the league & add the question who would you rather start a team with that is a blank canvas I would be confident to say more than 25 general managers would pick Klay, if not all 30.

"Who would you start a team with" is a slightly different question than the one that was asked. Different people can interpret how much of team fit or off the court culture/attitude reflect in that original "better overall basketball player" question, but undoubtedly NBA GMs will place more emphasis on those non-basketball factors. Klay definitively has a huge edge in those areas.

Spacing is hugely important and shooting is hugely important, but it's not as important as primary shot creation. Those are things you can get from role players. You talk about how the playoffs show what is important, and without a doubt every year it shows that primary shot creation/offense generation is the most important thing, and it's not something you can reliably get from a role player.

Klay does not offer that at a high level. Butler is not in the very top tier, but he's well above Klay in that regard.

 

[Walker11]

It's simplistic, but it's not stupid.

Klay essentially only does 1 thing: score. Efficiently, sure: he's an assassin. But the context of his team helps. He does nothing else. He doesn't create for others. He doesn't rebound. He doesn't block shots or force steals. His defense is good in the playoffs, but mediocre in the regular seasons the last few (4+) years.

He's literally never averaged over 3 assists a game in any season. In the free-flowing, ball movement-emphasized Warriors offense filled with insane finishers getting wide open looks, that's almost impossible. Iggy's done it all 6 years. Not even talking assist % or per 100 possessions, raw total assists per game in the crazy fast Warriors offense.

One year, he broke 3 FTs attempted per game (3.3). Out of 8 seasons. James Harden, seriously?

As such, he's a role player. A very good one. But he's a one-dimensional player most of the time.

That particular stat I linked shows that Jimmy Butler has contributed in many more facets of the game than Klay. It's essentially showing who is stuffing the stat sheet overall, and who is literally only stuffing it with points. Hey, points are the game, right? But it's pretty easy to get buckets when you're playing with 2 of the top 20 players of All Time, 1 of which has the craziest warping effect on a defense perhaps of all time, and 2 other good playmakers. Any decent scorer or shooter would thrive. The stat is BPM, so it's box score limited. Simplistic, as I said. But the advanced adjusted +/- stats back up that Thompson is overrated. PIPM rates him as having had 1 All-NBA caliber year and 0 other even All-Star caliber years. He's made 3 All-NBA and 5 All-Stars in actuality.

Of course, the natural rebuttal is that he'd do more when running his own team. It's his role that's the problem. He's playing with Steph and Draymond and Durant. Great playmakers. The coaches are just optimizing his skillset without letting him expand it to what it could be. But...


That's essentially a full season sample size, for the record.



This is pretty ironic. That 10-14 record without Klay stat includes 9 games from '17-'18 when both Klay and Steph were out. They went 3-6. Also, 1 in 2015 (loss) and 1 in 2017 (loss). So it's really 3-8 without Klay AND Steph, 7-6 without just Klay. Basically the same as the Curry missing number with a much smaller sample size with much more influence of road back to back restings against good teams

The 3,000 minute sample of him playing in games without Steph is much more telling..

Give me Butler, assuming our team is okay enough that he doesn't need to pull weird locker room # 2. Then give me Klay. Also, just for the Warriors, give me Klay. He fits their other pieces slightly better.

I remain wary of +/- but I am surprised his TS% is so low