Jared Butler Is One of my Favorite Basketball Players Ever
No, this is not *just* because he scored 15 points last night.
There’s a million different reasons to choose your favorite basketball players. It can be as simple as the best guy on your hometown team, to the guy who plays basketball with the style you’ve always wanted to play with yourself.
As you probably guessed from this post’s title, newly acquired Sixers point guard Jared Butler is one of my favorite basketball players ever, and it really comes down to a simple reason — he looked unbelievably cool when I watched him play at Baylor back in 2021.
Scouting the NBA Draft wasn’t so much a work obligation for me then as it was a hobby, and it didn’t take long for Butler’s games to feel like a relaxing treat more than anything else. Not too shocking considering he won a title at Baylor on a team that went 28-2 and had one of the most dominant tournament runs in NCAA history. Turns out good basketball is fun basketball.
But it was more than that watching Butler. He so often looked like the best player on the floor despite having some clear physical limitations compared to his peers, measuring just over 6-foot-2 at the draft combine and clocking in below 200 pounds. He arguably had the best handle in all of college basketball (particularly with his left-to-right cross, a move he still shreds defenders with now), but he didn’t have that John Wall or Tyrese Maxey tier of blink-and-you’ll-miss-it speed. Not a huge vertical leaper either, recording just five dunks in 94 career games played at Baylor.
Yet Butler still looked unstoppable more often than not. He was too slippery and crafty for defenders to keep him in front, with a 41.6% three-point shot and excellent passing vision to boot. He just always knew how to make the good plays. He knew how to get buckets, he knew how to make defenses pay for overcommitting their resources to him, he knew how to move off-ball, he knew how to survive on defense — which in total could be summed by saying he knew how to be a winning basketball player.
Of course, it hasn’t been all smooth sailing for Butler since then. As a freshman at Baylor, Butler was diagnosed with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, a rare genetic heart condition. Though he is asymptomatic, the condition did hurt his draft stock. NBA teams are already extremely hesitant to commit prime resources to small guards, much less so to ones with any health concerns. Thus, Butler slid all the way to pick 40, and is already on his fourth team in four seasons now.
He hasn’t truly stuck in a meaningful way as of yet, but it’s also clear that he’s as close as he’s ever been. The 7.0 points per game he’s averaging this season is a career high, and his 15-point performance on Tuesday was essentially the only positive during the Sixers’ dismal loss to the Raptors. Though it took him a long time to raise his level of play to the point where his style would work against NBA defenders, Butler is starting to look like his college self once more. His guile and tricky footwork is nearly unmatched, consistently throwing opponents off balance in order to scoot by them on his way to the rim.
He’s a brilliant actor, selling his moves with head fakes and shoulder faints while keeping his dribble alive at all times. Occasionally he’ll miss a contested look in the paint due to the limitations of his size and burst, but it’s no longer a weakness great enough to prevent him from getting on the court for meaningful minutes.
You can tell how much thought and practice goes into how Butler plays the game, how he’s always tinkering to perfect the edges and capitalize on the margins offered to him, and it’s why I enjoy watching him so much. Naturally, every guy who makes the NBA while standing at 6-foot-3 or shorter is absolutely insane in the most positive sense of the word. To hang in a league with athletes this explosive and tall, almost every “short” guy in the NBA has to be skilled beyond your wildest imagination. It’s why Steph Curry resonates with so many fans today, and why Allen Iverson did two decades ago. We inherently understand how difficult their jobs are and are blown away by their success.
Obviously, Butler isn’t on the historic level of a Curry or an Iverson. He’s coming off the bench for a 20-33 Sixers team. But on that much smaller scale, I still see the same thing — a small guard without an outlier athletic trait who continues to play great basketball because he understands the sport so well, and how he can best use his strengths in said sport. I can’t help but smile after each one of his crafty buckets. Even earlier this season when he lit the Sixers up while still a member of the Wizards, I couldn’t help but be elated watching Butler do his thing.
It’s easy to push back on all this Butler optimism by looking at his current contract situation. He’s still on a two-way deal and is in no way guaranteed to be on the team next year. Personally, I think he’s good enough to warrant consideration for a real NBA contract and to be a key part of the Sixers’ guard depth moving forward, but I’m also extremely biased in this situation. Trading Reggie Jackson was more likely about acquiring the four second-round picks than it was about acquiring Butler, which does not portend well to the chances he’s still wearing a Sixers uniform in 2026.
However, (and I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve written this) in a season that has pretty much been a worst case scenario for the Sixers, it’s important to celebrate all the positives you can find. Watching newcomers like Jared McCain, Justin Edwards, and Guerschon Yabusele all thrive and become fan favorites is necessary to keep the spirits up amidst everything else that’s gone wrong.
Jared Butler might not have the mass fan appeal of those three at the moment. He’s not a rookie, nor does he serve up poster dunks while being nicknamed The Dancing Bear. But he’s one of my favorite basketball players ever, and I’m really happy he’s on the Sixers.
Daniel Olinger is a writer for the Rights To Ricky Sanchez, and author of “The Danny” column, even though he refuses to be called that in person. He can be followed on X @dan_olinger.
“The Danny” is brought to you by the Official Realtor Of The Process, Adam Ksebe.
He’s also a really good person!
Yeah, that look back Smitty last night made me love him instantly. Such a savvy move.