Real ball knowers know butler is the OG free throw merchant. It’s just not fun to shit on him for it anymore since he’s not really any the spotlight anymore.

During those heat years the hate was real

If you’re curious what percentage of other players’ points come from FTs since ²⁰¹⁹⁄₂₀:

All stats taken from Basketball Reference pages

Butler: ²⁵²¹⁄₇₅₅₈ = 33.4%

Embiid: ²⁷²²⁄₈₈₃₈ = 30.8%

Harden: ²⁷²³⁄₉₆₂₄ = 28.3%

SGA: ²⁸³⁴⁄₁₁₁₂₆ = 25.5%

Giannis: ²⁹⁰³⁄₁₂₂₈₅ = 23.6%

AD: ¹⁸⁵⁹⁄₈₀₈₄ = 23.0%

Reaves: ¹⁰³⁰⁄₄₅₇₃ = 22.5%

Luka: ²⁵⁹¹⁄₁₁₉₁₆ = 21.7% (26.8% since the trade, just 21.3% before)

KD: ¹⁶⁵⁹⁄₈₀₅₆ = 20.6%

Avdija: ⁹¹⁷⁄₄₆₁₃ = 19.9% (up over 30% this season!)

Tatum: ²²⁵²⁄₁₁₄₂₉ = 19.7%

Jokic: ²¹⁵³⁄₁₁₈₀₇ = 18.2%

Brunson: ¹⁵⁷⁶⁄₈₆₆₈ = 18.2%

Steph: ¹⁵⁷⁷⁄₉₅₁₇ = 16.6%

LeBron: ¹⁵²⁰⁄₉₇₂₅ = 15.6%

Kyrie: ¹⁰⁴⁶⁄₇₁₃₉ = 14.7%

Essentially Butler is in a tier of his own in this regard aside from MAYBE Embiid and there’s still a noticeable gap between them whereas for a regular high FT guy like SGA he’s closer to Jokic than to Butler

The only reason guys like Harden, SGA and Luka get more hate is because they’re better than him.

Jimmy is gonna be a really weird player and career to try to explain to younger generations

Simply not good enough over the regular season to receive the hatred

Butler being the world’s biggest free throw grifter for damn near a decade while people talk about him being a “dog” and “MJ’s son” is so funny. Like, were you all not watching the man get half of his points from the free throw line?

Jimmy is an insane foul baiter, but I don’t think I’ve ever hated how he got his free throws (ignore my team). His fouls are almost always very physical to the point he often gets chipped up from them. Compare that to other foul baiters where they barely get contact then go to the line. I won’t lie, there’s some games where he gets a soft whistle, but it’s not been that often recently.

The wilt of foul baiting

This is known. Yet it gets posted every week. The reason why no one cares is that he shoots less than 8 FT a game (only ever shot more than 9 in one season).

Since the start of the 2019-2020 season Jimmy Butler has scored oved ¹⁄₃ of his points from free throws, the highest ratio in the league among players with at least 100 points (he has 7,558 in that span).

source

Harden is The Professor , this other guys are his students

That title 🔥. Had me hooked on this fact the way you laid it out

of course it’s those two numbers

Take out his whistle and he’s a borderline role player