CAMDEN, N.J. - General manager Elton Brand and the Sixers obviously did a ton of research into their new star, Jimmy Butler.
It sounds like Butler did the same for the Sixers.
While Butler admitted the Sixers play a much different style than his old team, the Timberwolves, he talked in detail at his introductory press conference Tuesday about why he thinks he will fit well in coach Brett Brown's lineup.
It's different, I won't lie. I had the ball a lot when I was in Minnesota, but that doesn't mean I can't play the style of basketball that's played here. That was just what I was asked to do when I was there. I don't think that's a problem. I'm great at sharing the ball, moving without the ball. If I need the ball, I'll go steal it, go the other end and lay it up. Go get an offensive rebound.
There's more than one way to get the ball. I think the way these guys play, sharing the ball, setting screens, slipping, all of that good stuff, I think that's actually easier than having to create all the time in iso situations and off the pick-and-roll.
As Butler said, he spent a lot of time with the ball in his hands in Minnesota. His 154 isolation possessions last season were more than any player on the Sixers. And he's moving from a team that favored the pick-and-roll to the Sixers, who run pick-and-rolls less frequently than any team in the league.
He'll also have to share the floor with Ben Simmons, who doesn't have the jumper to thrive without the ball, and Joel Embiid, who has the fifth-highest usage rate in the NBA at 30.9 percent.
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That doesn't concern Butler.
"Offense is easy," Butler said. "You shoot the ball when you're open. If you can drive it, you drive it, if not, you pass it. I think that we have a really unselfish group of guys who are going to make that extra pass. If JJ [Redick] is open and I'm open on a three, I would pray that they throw the ball to JJ instead of me. I think whenever you have guys like that, offense is going to be the easy part of it."
While, as he acknowledged, Butler isn't an elite three-pointer shooter (35.4 percent over the last four-plus seasons), he does a lot of things well. Everyone knows about his ability to create his own shot, but he has a track record as a good distributor who takes care of the ball well. Over the last three-plus seasons, he has a 22.3 assist percentage and 9.3 turnover percentage, excellent numbers for someone who has played as much in isolation and in the pick-and-roll as Butler has.
Without the outside shooting of Robert Covington and Dario Saric, the Sixers may need Butler to be a higher-volume three-point shooter. If that's necessary, he said he's happy to adapt his game.
"I think I can put the ball in the basket," Butler said. "Whether it be a jump shot, layup, post up, in transition. We'll find ways to make things work. If I gotta spend a countless amount of hours shooting trey balls, I'll do that. I know what I'm capable of doing when I'm out there on the floor. I think it's going to be easy to play off the guys we have. I'll shoot with JJ as much as possible because he tends to make a lot of shots out there on the floor, so he'll make my job a lot easier in that aspect.
"I don't think the offense is going to be a problem at all. I think offense is going to be the easy part. As fast as we play, everybody was open on the floor last night. That's absolutely incredible. And the ball was finding the open guy every single time. We'll figure it out."
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