In one fell transactional swoop, Golden State ended the Butler saga and landed a costar for Stephen Curry. Will it be enough to give the Warriors a chance in Curry’s age-36 season?
The Golden State Warriors were not going to win the 2024-25 title before they acquired Jimmy Butler. They sat at 25-24 with a slightly negative point differential, in a three-way tie for eighth place in the West. They weren’t even favored to make the playoffs, according to ESPN’s BPI, and held a 0.1 percent chance to lift the Larry O’Brien Trophy this June.
That state of affairs wasn’t acceptable to a franchise accustomed to winning. “We’ve got a lot of competitive people in here, so it’s not easy being .500 and wanting to be better, wanting to compete for a championship,” coach Steve Kerr said this week. Added Draymond Green about Warriors ownership, “Sitting at .500, you’ve got to expect that they’re going to look to be aggressive.”
Lo and behold, aggression manifested: The Warriors have put an end to the Jimmy Butler saga, acquiring and extending the disgruntled six-time All-Star in a multi-team trade that cost Andrew Wiggins, Kyle Anderson, Lindy Waters III, the recently acquired Dennis Schroder, and a 2025 first-round pick with top-10 protections.
Butler provides Steph Curry with the well-rounded costar he’s lacked for years. Curry has never had such a heavy burden on his slim shoulders as this season—a rough development given that he celebrates his 37th birthday next month. Curry remains the most dangerous shooter in the NBA, but he’s experienced just a tinge of slippage. He’s playing fewer minutes than in any non-injury-riddled season of his career, his usage rate is his lowest since 2013-14, and his true shooting percentage is his lowest since 2012-13.
Yet the Warriors’ problem isn’t Steph; the problem is a lack of offensive punch around Steph. Golden State scores 117.6 points per 100 possessions when Curry is on the floor, per Cleaning the Glass, which ranks in the 76th percentile leaguewide. But the offense collapses to a Wizardian 105.1 points per 100 possessions when Curry sits, which ranks in the eighth percentile. The only other rotation players with a larger offensive on/off split, per CtG, are the two MVP favorites—and notice that the 10th-largest split belongs to Butler, even in a relative statistical down year.
Before the Butler trade, Draymond Green was the only Warrior other than Curry on The Ringer’s current Top 100 players ranking, and Green’s on that list because of his defense. Embracing depth, as the Warriors did to great success early in the season, can be a virtue—but it can also be a sign that most players in the rotation aren’t standing out enough to earn more minutes.
In a league full of superstar team-ups, Steph needed more help, plain and simple, but the Warriors had whiffed on numerous attempts to find him some. They missed out on Paul George, Lauri Markkanen, and even LeBron James. Kevin Durant reportedly rebuffed a reunion this week.
But they found their man in Butler. And while it may seem like a match between two parties who ran out of other options, Butler’s a fine—if aging and pricey—choice.
Butler’s spotty health and flair for off-court drama mask just how great he still is when he steps onto the hardwood. Over the past three seasons, for instance, Butler ranks fourth in true shooting percentage among 71 players with a 24 percent usage rate or higher; he’s behind only two recent MVPs and Kevin Durant. The Warriors are now the only team with two players among this top 10.
Butler’s game is somewhat underrated because he adds value with strengths in “hidden” stats. You don’t get noticed for the turnovers you don’t commit, but Butler has a very low turnover rate for an alpha creator. He also makes up for a lack of 3s with an incredible knack for drawing fouls. Over the past three seasons, Butler has led all non-centers in free throw rate, edging out Giannis Antetokounmpo for the top spot.
At the very least, Butler is a much better player than Wiggins, the wing he’ll replace in Golden State’s rotation, even though the former no. 1 pick had perked up this season in Golden State. And he should be motivated to play his best basketball after a halting exit from Miami.
And all of that data is from the regular season. Playoff Jimmy is even better, ascending to a level that few NBA legends have reached.
Game score is a fun stat that blends a player’s entire box score into a single number, which is roughly on the scale of points scored (so 40 is an incredible game score, 20 is good, and so on). Butler has six different playoff performances with a game score of 40 or higher. So does LeBron. Michael Jordan has seven. And no other NBA player on record has more than three. In other words, Butler and the two GOATs each have twice as many top-tier playoff games as any other player.
Overall, Butler ranks seventh in postseason box plus-minus since 2018-19, when he played for the 76ers.
Given the intense competition in the Western Conference standings, it is still far from assured that Golden State will actually qualify for the 2024-25 playoffs. But if the Warriors do get there with Curry and Butler, would any of the West’s younger leaders relish facing them? The Warriors have much more playoff experience than the second-seeded Grizzlies or third-seeded Rockets. Heck, they’d even have a fighting chance against the top-seeded Thunder, whom they’ve always played tough even before adding Butler; they’re 3-4 against Oklahoma City over the past two seasons, with two of the losses coming in overtime.
As of Thursday morning, the newly calculated BPI projections give the Warriors a 62 percent chance of reaching the playoffs—up from 40 percent on Wednesday—and a 0.5 percent chance of winning the title. That’s still a tiny number; if we simulated the season 200 times from here, Golden State would expect to win the title just once.
But it’s a lot larger than 0.1 percent, which is the title probability BPI gave Golden State before the trade. The Warriors still have a lot of work to do over the last two months of the regular season, and the Butler-Green duo could face some of the same spacing issues that plagued Butler’s pairing with Bam Adebayo in Miami, where the Heat struggled to score consistently with multiple reluctant shooters. But now the Warriors have at least a sliver of a chance that they didn’t before.
And even if they aren’t able to take advantage this season, they have Butler for another two beyond this one, after he agreed to an extension as part of the trade. The Warriors’ shopping isn’t done yet, and fortunately for them, Butler so thoroughly tanked his trade value that they didn’t have to give up too many future assets to acquire him. They still have all their young prospects with upside, and if their protected pick conveys to Miami this summer, they’ll have three more first-rounders available to trade. Maybe then they’d add a third legitimate star to try to maximize Curry’s twilight, after finally giving him a second just before the deadline.
Zach writes about basketball, baseball, and assorted pop culture topics.
