Not a single SheridanHoops staff member picked Chicago Bulls guard Jimmy Butler to win this year’s Most Improved Player award, but nearly a quarter of the way through this season, Butler would appear the runaway winner. The Marquette product scored at least 20 points in a game just five times a season ago, but has reached that number eight times in his last nine games including a 26-point, five assist performance in Sunday’s win over Brooklyn.
Butler says his confidence and aggressiveness are the two biggest factors in his ascent, and the 30th pick of the 2011 draft is definitely playing at an All-Star level thus far in 2014-2015.
“I think I strive to do whatever would help my team win,” Butler told SheridanHoops. “Scoring, guarding, facilitating. Whatever it might be. I’m just a winner, I don’t care about stats.”
Butler was an above average player and a really good defender in the league, but his shooting numbers and ability to get to the line left something to be desired. But now Butler is playing at a high level and his coach now expects him to play that way every game.
“Each year he’s been in the league he’s made great strides,” Bulls head coach Tom Thibodeau said. “The way he’s practicing, the way he’s preparing, it’s just giving him a lot more confidence.”
Thibodeau said that not having a full training camp last year was a setback, and now Thibodeau says he’s in great shape, he’s practicing well and he’s putting himself in positions to be successful on the offensive end. So how much has Butler improved offensively this year? This chart puts his improvement into focus.
| Butler | FG % | 3 FG % | Points | Assists | FT Attempts | FT % | O Rating | PER | True Shooting | Usage % | Win Shares/48 |
| 2013-2014 | 39.7 | 28.3 | 13.1 | 2.6 | 5 | 76.9 | 108 | 13.5 | 52.2 | 16.8 | 0.131 |
| 2014-2015 | 49.8 | 30.8 | 21.9 | 3.1 | 8.8 | 82.6 | 125 | 22.4 | 61.6 | 22.5 | 0.231 |
His field goal percentage is up more than 10 percentage points and Chicago is scoring 17 more points per 100 possessions with Butler on the floor this year than last year. The Bulls are giving him the ball more, as evidenced by his spiked usage rate, and so far Butler is rewarding the team with his vastly improved offensive play.
“They’re always looking for me, when I have a mismatch they’re always looking to give me the ball,” Butler said.
So what’s changed for Butler and the team to cause this huge increase in offensive output?
“I think the aggressiveness and I’m getting to the line a lot more,” Butler said. “Those are the two biggest things, but more than anything I think my teammates are finding me in great positions to score the ball.”
His teammates echoed that assessment.
“We’re putting him in a lot more positions to do stuff,” Bulls forward Mike Dunleavy told SheridanHoops. “Giving him opportunities on the wing, isolations, post-ups, pick-and-rolls, so it’s a combination of him getting better and being used more frequently.”
“The fact that he can shoot the ball means that opponents don’t know what he’s going to do, shoot or drive,” forward Tony Snell told SheridanHoops. “He could do both and he’s definitely defending like he did last year, he’s just more of a threat.”
Butler also leads the league in distance traveled per game, according to NBA.com’s tracking stats, running 2.8 miles per game. That’s a testament to how hard Butler works and moves with or without the ball on both ends.
“I’m really proud of him because I know how bad he wants it,” Joakim Noah said. “He plays for the right reasons, too. It’s never forced shots, it’s always within the system. He represents what this team is all about.”
“I know how good he is, how he’s been preparing for this,” Derrick Rose said. “He’s playing like he’s prepared for this since the offseason. So it’s just paying off for him.”
To illustrate how well things are paying off for Butler over the first month of the season, here’s where Butler stacks up among the league leaders:
| Butler | Number | League Rank |
| Minutes Per Game | 39.3 | 1 |
| Made Free Throws | 109 | 3 |
| Attempted Free Throws | 132 | 3 |
| Offensive Win Shares | 2.2 | 4 |
| Win Shares | 2.8 | 7 |
| Win Shares/48 | 0.231 | 8 |
| O Rating | 124.9 | 9 |
| Points Per Game | 21.9 | 9 |
| Minutes | 590 | 13 |
| True Shooting % | 61.6 | 15 |
Butler’s on-court brilliance this season seems abnormal, but Dunleavy said that Butler’s jump in his fourth season seems fairly par for the course when it comes to a really good NBA player.
“I think that’s kind of the progression a lot of times in this league,” Dunleavy said. “You get three or four years in and that’s when you really get to become the player that you’re going to be and Jimmy is well on his way to being just a great, great player in this league. ”
With newfound confidence in his offensive game, aided by his offseason work and preparation put in during Thibodeau’s practices, Butler is off to a soaring, All-Star level start that seems quite real and sustainable.
“Confidence is always a key in this league,” Butler said. “If you feel like you can do something then you can. You just have to keep telling yourself that.”
Shlomo Sprung is a national columnist for SheridanHoops who focuses on analytics, profiles and features. He is also the web editor of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle. A 2011 graduate of Columbia University’s Journalism School, he has previously worked for the New York Knicks, The Sporting News, Business Insider and other publications. You should follow him on Twitter.