ESPN NBA rank: 5 Players they ranked too low

#3 Jimmy Butler

Oklahoma City Thunder v Chicago Bulls

Placing Jimmy Butler out of the top 10 definitely took some weird mental gymnastics from the ESPN crew. For one thing, players in contract years do not shrivel up below their peak form even if they are looking for trades like Butler is. For another, Butler is quite literally the only reason why the Wolves made the playoffs last year, and the Bulls did for 2 seasons before that.

Butler is one of the top 5 wings on the planet. Choosing between him and Paul George is a bit of a tough ask, but the duo, KD, the Klaw and LeBron are undoubtedly the most impactful wings in the NBA.

Placing more one-dimensional players like Jokic and Lillard ahead of Butler is plain disrespect to the do-it-all wing. He is as good a scorer as the duo when he needs to be, as good a playmaker nearly all the time even though he doesn't hoard the ball all the time and ten times the defender either of the duo is.

His playmaking is what puts him ahead of George in my eye, though we are yet to see how well he meshes with another elite playmaker on his team.