Chicago Bulls: 3 players that gave Jimmy Butler fits

2. LeBron James, Forward

The real question here should be not what problems Butler ran into against the current Los Angeles Lakers superstar forward LeBron James in his career, but who hasn’t run into problems against the mid-30’s all-time great. LeBron was the “King of the East” for much of his career, when he played for his hometown team and/or the Heat.

Butler had the unfortunate string of playoff runs with the Bulls where he constantly ran into LeBron, when he was a member of both the Heat and Cleveland Cavaliers. He was never really able to get through the future Hall-of-Famer and likely one of the top three players in NBA history in LeBron.

In his career thus far, LeBron is a 16-time NBA All-Star selection, three-time NBA Champion, four-time MVP, three-time Finals MVP, and 15-time All-NBA Team selection. LeBron even has more career All-Star selections to date than the Bulls all-time great shooting guard Michael Jordan did in his accomplished career.

The career record is actually evenly split between the regular season and playoffs combined in games where Butler faced LeBron. Butler holds an edge in the regular season meetings, with a record of 14-9. But he is behind in the playoffs, with a record of 3-8.

In the 23 career regular season meetings between Butler and LeBron, the latter of the two averaged 25.9 points per game, 8.2 rebounds, 7.3 assists, 1.2 steals, and 0.7 blocks. He shot a rock solid 53.7 percent from the field, 39.3 percent from beyond the arc, and 66.7 percent from the free-throw line.