Who is More Important to His Team: Jimmy Butler or Kawhi Leonard?

[Calispursfan11]

Butler is tougher and has a better offensive game, handles and passing. His defense is very solid as well. Kawhi may have a slight edge on defense but it is small. Other than that, I don't see many advantages Kawhi has over Butler. They are very close overall but I Butler gets the edge as the better all around player and is more valuable to his team than Kawhi is to the Spurs. If the Spurs lost Kawhi they would still be pretty good and most likely make the playoffs. If the Bulls lost Butler, their offense would completely break down and they would be sub .500 and out of the playoff hunt.

[kawhidoyoudothistome]

Spurs would be okay, but not for long. The addition of LMA obviously makes the Kawhi-less Spurs a lot more of a threat than a Jimmy Butler-less Bulls, but I could see the Bulls overcoming the odds and making the playoffs. We've seen the Spurs w/o Kawhi before, and it wasn't pretty. Terrible wing defense, getting out rebounded game after game. He's probably our second best (or third now, with LMA in the fold) rebounder. He's the key reason the Spurs went from mediocre 50-win team, to great 50-win team. I do wonder how Jimmy Butler would do on the Spurs, and I'm sure we would have seen that had Kawhi been taken sooner in the draft. I think I read somewhere that the Spurs were targeting him. Kawhi's greater wingspan and all gives him the edge, IMO, because we still have yet to see his full scoring "potential". I wouldn't believe myself if I told my past self that Kawhi would be scoring over 20 a game, because his shot always looked strange and he never looked like the type to be a scorer. Kawhi has definitely proved me, and so many others, wrong. Now I see him as a 24+ ppg, 9 rpg, and 2 spg type of guy.

[tbdog]

Your forgetting the intangibles. Leonard is a straight up winner. He is the one who went head to head against Lebron in two different finals. I only remember Butler having one good series against Lebron.

[apalisoc_9]

Comparing a top 6 player in the league to a top 15. Can the op be anymore dumber?

[100%duncan]

lol Spurs are barely a .500 team w/o kawhi. They don't make the playoffs in the west.

[Robz4000]

Lets put it like this:

Defense - Kawhi >>>>>> Jimmy

Offense - Kawhi << Jimmy

That help?

[100%duncan]

Lets put it like this:

Defense - Kawhi >>>>>> Jimmy

Offense - Kawhi << Jimmy

That help?

Offensively? He's inefficient and inconsistent in the East

[Fireball]

Kawhi is not only a little better on defense ... he is the best in the league.

[Kawhitstorm]

Quit creating posts based on my doodles without giving me credit

[rasuo214]

Spurs are a .500 team without Kawhi. Kawhi is much better defensively, not a little better. Kawhi is also a better rebounder. When it comes to offense Kawhi is a better shooter than Butler. Butler is a better ball handler/passer and he's able to get to the FT line at a much higher rate.

Also if they switched teams I think Kawhi would be a better fit on the Bulls than Butler would be on the Spurs.

[r0drig0lac]

st is not the best place to ask this question

[BG_Spurs_Fan]

Spurs are a .500 team without Kawhi. Kawhi is much better defensively, not a little better. Kawhi is also a better rebounder. When it comes to offense Kawhi is a better shooter than Butler. Butler is a better ball handler/passer and he's able to get to the FT line at a much higher rate.

Also if they switched teams I think Kawhi would be a better fit on the Bulls than Butler would be on the Spurs.

No

[rasuo214]

No

Spurs were 9-9 w/o Kawhi last season, 8-8 w/o Kawhi the previous season. So, yes.

[BG_Spurs_Fan]

Spurs were 9-9 w/o Kawhi last season, 8-8 w/o Kawhi the previous season. So, yes.

Small sample size and out of context. Pretty sure you don't think Kawhi was the difference between the 2014 Spurs winning the championship and missing the playoffs.

Fwiw, the Spurs have a decent record with Tim/big 3 sitting games or when Bud coached over Pop. Doesn't mean much though.

[rasuo214]

Small sample size and out of context. Pretty sure you don't think Kawhi was the difference between the 2014 Spurs winning the championship and missing the playoffs.

Fwiw, the Spurs have a decent record with Tim/big 3 sitting games or when Bud coached over Pop. Doesn't mean much though.

Those are pretty big sample sizes (18 games last season and 16 the previous, that's a fifth of the season). Obviously there's no way to know for certain what would have happened without Kawhi. I'm simply pointing out that the Spurs have been a .500 team without Kawhi the past 2 seasons in response to the OP's post/topic. That's not saying they wouldn't be able to figure things out.

Also Bud has proven to be a quality coach and the key difference was that we had decent depth to withstand one of the Big3 getting injured. Since losing SJax we haven't had a decent backup for Kawhi. Hopefully we don't need to find out if we have the depth this season but if we do we'll see if Anderson, Simmons or Butler can step up.

[kaji157]

Obviously Butler, the Spurs are just much better constructed than the Bulls.

Not saying Butler is better, just that the Bulls have less talent.

[YGWHI]

Butler is tougher and has a better offensive game, handles and passing.

SGs, like Butler, usually have better handles, but we've seen Kawhi driving to the hoop or as pick and roll ball-handler, and he's not bad...

Pts per Drive Leaders
Andrew Wiggins 1.02
Rodney Hood .93
D Cousins .91

Kawhi Leonard .90
Steph Curry .89
Alec Burks .88

Player tracking data ranks him well above-average as a pick and roll ball handler.

http://stats.nba.com/playtype/#!/bal...eviation*E*sas

Butller doesn't have a better offensive game since Kawhi is a better shooter and more efficient scorer. Better post-up player, shooting off screens, hand off, spot up, transition...

His defense is very solid as well. Kawhi may have a slight edge on defense but it is small.

Yeah..."it's small"

Players are shooting 35% from the field when guarded by Kawhi Leonard.

Other than that, I don't see many advantages Kawhi has over Butler.

Kawhi shooting, FG%, eFG, post up, off screens, spot up, hand off, transition>>>>>>>Butler ball-handler/getting to the line

Kawhi's D >>>>>>> Butler's defense.

There are so many good reasons why the media is talking about Kawhi on figurative MVP discussions over Butler, who doesn't even rank as top 10 player for them.

[Brazil]

lol Spurs are barely a .500 team w/o kawhi. They don't make the playoffs in the west.

wut ?

and Bulls without Buttler are what then ?

dumb statement backed up by nothing

[SupremeGuy]

lol Spurs are barely a .500 team w/o kawhi. They don't make the playoffs in the west.

Spurs are a .500 team without Kawhi. Kawhi is much better defensively, not a little better. Kawhi is also a better rebounder. When it comes to offense Kawhi is a better shooter than Butler. Butler is a better ball handler/passer and he's able to get to the FT line at a much higher rate.

Also if they switched teams I think Kawhi would be a better fit on the Bulls than Butler would be on the Spurs.

Spurs were 9-9 w/o Kawhi last season, 8-8 w/o Kawhi the previous season. So, yes.

This.

[SpursFan86]

Kawhi is definitely > Butler...I guess it's closer when you're asking who's more important to their team, but I'd still go with Kawhi.

Think a better question would be who's better between Kawhi and Paul George. PG has been really impressive this year...definitely a pleasant surprise since I honestly wasn't sure if he'd ever fully recover from that leg injury. Will be interesting to see whether him and Kawhi keep up their current levels of play.

[ElNono]

still don't understand why people here overrate Jimmy Butler so much... I suppose it's just to troll Kawhi s...

Jimmy is a good player, but like many others, when he got a bigger offensive role, his defense (which is what got him there) took a massive back seat...

[ElNono]

Also don't forget the East/West disparity when it comes to padding numbers and these kind of comparisons... look at Pierce, who looked like the second coming in Wizards gear last season, and now in the West he looks ready to retire.

[YGWHI]

still don't understand why people here overrate Jimmy Butler so much... I suppose it's just to troll Kawhi s...

Agree. Since OP made a thread saying he wants Parker to have a lot more FGA than Kawhi and LMA ... No one can genuinely think that at this point of Parker's career, with LMA's elite offense and Kawhi's improvement...OP's just trolling here.

[HarlemHeat37]

Kawhi is definitely a better player, but Butler is definitely more valuable for a Bulls team with a ty roster full of washed-up players, tbh..

[ElNono]

Kawhi is definitely a better player, but Butler is definitely more valuable for a Bulls team with a ty roster full of washed-up players, tbh..

Bulls just need to move away from Rose...