With the 2024-25 Sixers season officially in the rearview mirror, the time has come to evaluate the few highs and many lows of a disastrous campaign in which the team only managed 24 wins. We will do so in "Sixers year-in-review," a series assessing each individual Sixers player's performance this year based on numbers, film and quotes, while also looking ahead to the future.
Up next: Jared Butler.
Butler, 24, came over to the Sixers at the trade deadline along with four second-round picks from the Washington Wizards in exchange for Reggie Jackson and a first-round pick. He played in 28 games (17 starts) and helped keep the Sixers afloat with his organizational skills on the offensive end.
Will Butler be back next year? What did we learn about him in his two-plus months of action with the team?
SIXERS YEAR-IN-REVIEW
Joel Embiid | Guerschon Yabusele | Paul George | Jared McCain | Tyrese Maxey | Andre Drummond | Quentin Grimes
What we learned in 2024-25
Butler can run an NBA offense consistently.
As Butler pointed out late in the season, his time with the Sixers ended his fourth NBA campaign, yet it was the first time he has ever known he would be playing significant minutes each and every night. Surely Butler would have liked to be part of more than three victories in total, but he seemed genuinely appreciative of the fact that he had runway to demonstrate his abilities on a game-by-game basis.
Butler's greatest skill: running the show and doing it smoothly. He fits all of the tropes of an old school backup point guard: he is an extension of the coaching staff on the floor, even if he does not make tons of highlight plays he rarely makes mistakes, he pays attention to how he can maximize his teammates and people like playing with him.
"Somebody in his position… first and foremost, they've got to organize the team and run the team and lead the team," Sixers head coach Nick Nurse said on April 11. "I think that's very important for the position, and he's got very, very good spirit in that sense… And then he's making good decisions."
Number to know
Jared Butler in 24.4 minutes per game with the Sixers: 4.6 three-point attempts per game.
Butler's three-point shooting numbers in the NBA consistently lagged behind the quality of his mechanics and his underlying numbers predating his time with the Sixers, and Nurse began encouraging him to make defenses pay for going under ball screens. Butler became notably more aggressive as a long-range shooter, and looked like a different player offensively by the end of the season.
"As a shooter, it's so funny, playing basketball for however many years, like, I've always been able to shoot the ball," Butler said after Saturday's game. "A lot of times [one must] give it time, give it patience, and I'm glad it's falling, knocking down, and just keep going with it."
Butler is right: his form looks excellent, he has always been very good from the free throw line and can easily knock down mid-range jumpers. It has never made a ton of sense that he is not believed to be a threat from three-point range. The follow-up question, then, was obvious: is it difficult not to get in your own head about flukey struggles?
Before the question has even been said in completion, Butler smiles, nods and begins to elaborate.
"Yeah, I'm in my room, in the shower, like, stressed out," Butler said.
How does he get past it?
"Well, the thing I say is, 'It's not going to get better unless I shoot more.' So I can't not shoot anymore, or else my shooting percentage is going to be what it is. That's the mindset that's helped overcome it."
Butler made 43.6 percent of his three-point attempts over the final 10 games of the season to bring his percentages back up to a reasonable mark after a difficult slump. He does not need to be Stephen Curry or anything close, but Butler's long-term outlook becomes much more enticing if he is reliable pulling up and knocking down an above-the-break three should his defender go under a screen.
MORE: Areas of improvement for Sixers' rookies
Important film
Butler played a stellar game in one of his lone wins as a Sixer against Utah in March. His box score line was decent, but nothing to write home about. Still, it turned out to be perhaps the single most encouraging display of that vantage point guard skillset he put on during 28 games of work with the Sixers. His improved shooting bolstered a performance powered by pick-and-roll playmaking. This is the vision of a Butler optimist moving forward:
Jared Butler played a classic old school point guard game on Sunday vs. Utah, showing his skill as a pick-and-roll shot creator. He also broke out of a shooting slump with three triples: pic.twitter.com/t4GaCzCHiO
— Adam Aaronson's clips (@SixersAdamClips) March 10, 2025
Butler knows he cannot explode past guards or rise up to posterize bigs (he joked in his exit interview last week that his main goal for the offseason was to work on his dunking). So he has worked tirelessly to master the intricacies of the pick-and-roll and identify avenues to dissect opposing defenses and create open looks, whether those shots are for himself or others.
When did Butler feel like he really began to understand the pick-and-roll at such a high level?
"Honestly, just watching Mike Conley my rookie year," Butler said. "Him and Rudy Gobert in the lob and then the pick-and-roll was so fun."
MORE: Which Sixers midseason additions will return?
Salient soundbite
Conley to PhillyVoice on April 5 on his experience teaming with a rookie version of Butler and why he was drawn to him early on:
"Jared, honestly, he's one of my favorite people. He's like a sponge, you know? He is a guy that really wanted to know everything about everything off the court: what to eat, how to take care of your body, what to do at night when you sleep, [how many] hours to sleep, everything to see, even outside of basketball. So just a guy that's willing, wants to learn all of that at a young age, it was easy for me to want to help him, want to work out with him, want to compete with him, and I'm just happy that he's getting an opportunity here to show people what he can do."
Question heading into the future
How valuable is Butler's skillset in today's NBA?
Traditional point guards, as enjoyable as they can be to watch when things are running smoothly, feel like a bit of a dying breed. In an era in which pull-up shot-making and defensive versatility are more coveted than ever, is there even room for the undersized, not-that-explosive floor generals like Butler?
Butler could very well be back next season, but he is likely not headed for nightly rotation minutes barring an injury. The Sixers should be able to distribute their ball-handling duties among Tyrese Maxey, Jared McCain and Quentin Grimes moving forward, which would make Butler more of a luxury or change-of-pace option than someone required to be at his best every night. That may be the ideal role for Butler, though nobody would fault him for seeking more minutes elsewhere.
Ultimately, there are all kinds of players in the NBA with skillsets that do not match the current archetypal ones for their positions that still succeed in the NBA, and it is not as if Butler's talents are exotic. If someone thrives within the niche they have created for themselves, they can be a helpful rotation piece. Butler is no different.
Contract information
Butler has a team option in his contract for 2025-26 worth a projected $2,349,578, and the Sixers will have until June 29 to make the call on it. That figure is less than $100,000 more than the projected veteran's minimum salary. If the team declines the option, Butler will be an unrestricted free agent.
MORE: Butler plays quarterback on the court
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